Posted on 21 Jan 2014
Malaysia will issue licenses and incentives for manufacturers to make small, energy efficient cars in Southeast Asia's former auto hub, potentially benefiting Honda Motor Co Ltd and Nissan Motor Co Ltd who have operations there.
"We hope this National Automotive Policy (NAP) 2014 can enable us to become the energy efficient vehicle hub in ASEAN in the future," International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed told reporters at a news conference on Monday.
"We hope to raise total production volume to 1.25 million vehicles by 2020 from some 570,000 vehicles," he said.
Malaysia was overtaken as Southeast Asia's automotive hub in the early 2000s by Thailand, which has followed a more open policy toward foreign car makers setting up factories and selling cars domestically.
In contrast, Malaysia has focused on developing domestic car makers Proton Holdings Bhd and Perusahaan Otomobil Kedua Sdn Bhd (Perodua), Reuters reported.
Malaysia targets to export more than 200,000 cars and ship RM10bil of components in 2020.
Depending on the investments, it will extend exemption of excise duties and import taxes for hybrid and electric vehicles for models assembled in Malaysia and until December 2015 for hybrid and cars and December 2017 for electric cars.
