PETALING JAYA: Investment, trade and industry minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz encouraged electric vehicle (EV) automakers with Malaysian facilities to consider making Malaysia their hub to supply and service the fast-growing EV market in Asean.
He said this is because the EV market in Asean is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of about 33% from around US$500 million in 2021 to US$2.7 billion (RM11.77 billion) by 2027.
“Malaysia has many positive factors that make its investment landscape highly conducive to supporting multinationals’ regional hub ambitions.
“Apart from our strategic location, good infrastructure, and rule of law, we also have a highly-established electrical and electronics industry which has been reliably feeding the other industries, including aerospace, renewable energy, and EVs,” he said in his keynote address at the launch of UMW Toyota Beyond Zero.
Commercially, the automotive industry registered a strong performance in 2023, achieving total industry volume (TIV) close to 800,000 units while the adoption of electrified vehicles (xEV) also increased from 2.77% of TIV in 2022 to 4.12% in 2023.
New registered passenger battery electric vehicles (BEVs) jumped from around 3,000 units in 2022 to more than 13,000 units in 2023.
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In preparing for the zero-emission vehicle transition, through the National Automotive Policy (NAP 2020), Tengku Zafrul said the investment, trade and industry ministry (Miti) is targeting to empower local automotive industry players through various investment incentives for the assembly or manufacture of hybrid and EVs.
“We also encourage collaboration with global industry leaders to bring the production of clean energy vehicles to Malaysia and begin their research and development facilities in the country so that we can develop more highly skilled local workers and support more domestic vendors,” he said.
He said Miti will continue to collaborate with the human resource and higher education ministries to ensure that the industry’s requirements for skilled workers will be fulfilled.
“In building the necessary infrastructure to achieve the target of having 20% of TIV for EVs (including hydrogen fuel cells) by 2030, 50% of TIV by 2040, and 80% of TIV by 2050, the National EV Steering Committee will, among others, address a few key concerns.
“The top concerns are firstly, the availability of charging stations to address customer range anxiety, and secondly, ensuring the supply to power up the charging ecosystem, so owners can charge any form of EV quickly, easily, and reliably in an urban or rural setting,” he said.
