The 9 Highlights Of The National Automotive Policy (NAP 2014) You Should Know

The revised National Automotive Policy (NAP) 2014 unveiled today aims to make Malaysia the hub for energy-efficient vehicles (EEVs) and to fulfil the Barisan Nasional’s general election promise to reduce car prices between 20 per cent and 30 per cent over the next five years.
Under the...

mynewshub.my

The NAP was was introduced in 2006 to help regulate the local automotive industry and help turn it into a regional, if not global, hub. In 2009, it was reviewed to better reflect the changes in the automotive industry.

International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed, who unveiled NAP 2014 yesterday, said the Government would be allocating up to RM1.89bil in soft loans and RM175mil in grants.

“The loans would be for the development of tool, dies and moulds, component technology pre-commercialisation, competitiveness-related activities, distribution infrastructure establishment as well as the development of energy-efficient vehicle (EEV) infrastructure,” he said.

Grants, meanwhile, will be allocated for human capital and bumiputra development.

“The ministry of international trade and industry (Miti) has developed a car price reduction framework. The framework has a number of measures, but the main thing is the opening up of the Malaysian automotive market,” Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed told a press conference on the NAP.

On the price reduction, some locally assembled car manufacturers have reduced the price in stages.

Among them are Honda Jazz (reduced to 17 percent), Nissan Sentra (13 percent), Proton Saga (12 percent) and Perodua Alza (12 percent).

malaysiandigest.com

“Liberalisation creates a more competitive environment that would enable greater market forces that lead to more competitive prices.”

The government is expected to open EEV production license as a whole.

The license will only be given to car installations with an engine capacity of not less than 1800cc and the price should be more than RM150, 000 per unit, according to sources.

malaysiandigest.com

In order to achieve the objective of making Malaysia as the regional hub for EEV vehicles, the government is expected to open

Manufacturing License (ML) applications to foreign automotive companies in an effort to encourage local car manufacturers in this segment.

malaysiandigest.com

Mustapa said the main objectives of the NAP 2014 was to turn Malaysia into a regional automotive hub for EEV and promote a competitive and sustainable domestic automotive industry. He said the Government would provide customised incentives for EEV-related foreign direct investment and domestic direct investment.

The present excise duty and import tax exemptions for hybrid and electric vehicles will be discontinued for imported models. They will, however, be extended to models assembled in Malaysia until Dec 31, 2015 for hybrids and Dec 31, 2017 for electric vehicles. The reason, said Mustapa, is that the imported models do not contribute as much to the economy as the locally assembled ones.

theedgemalaysia.com

The new NAP aims to create an additional 70,000 manufacturing jobs by 2020 (2013: 250,000 existing jobs); 80,000 additional aftermarket jobs (2013: 300,000 existing jobs); RM10 billion in exports of parts and components (2013:RM5 billion); and RM2 billion in exports of recycled materials and remanufactured components (from nothing today).

theedgemalaysia.com

To encourage participation of Bumiputera companies in total value chain of the domestic automotive industry. On Approved Permits (APs), the government has decided an indepth study to be undertaken to asses the impact of the termination of Bumiputera participation in the auto industry.

nst.com.my

In terms of industry volume, the new NAP targets total production volume of 1.25 million units of vehicles in 2020 (2013: 570,000 units), with 250,000 export units (2013: 20,000 units). It also aims to produce 100,000 units of commercial vehicles (2013: 55,000) and 800,000 units of motorcycles in 2020 (2013: 430,000).

National carmaker Proton shrugged off concerns of its future, insisting that it will "survive" the competition from foreign cars producers with the revised National Automotive Policy (NAP) 2014.

Proton chairman Tan Sri Khamil Jamil said the national car manufacturer will continue to grow, despite being criticised in the past that it had relied too much on the government's protection.

"Proton will continue to survive. Together with Perodua, Proton will continue to be relevant in the automotive industry." "The two national automotive companies will play a vibrant role and be the focal point to improve and enhance under the NAP."

Proton has released a media statement following the National Automotive Policy (NAP 2014) announcement. The gist of it is, as the only full-fledged car manufacturer in the region (the company’s own words, not ours), Proton is in full support of the Malaysian Government’s initiatives, adding that the move in is line with the company’s shared vision for the industry.

Beyond that, the local carmaker will also be looking at expanding opportunities to grow abroad. This will be executed in stages, through direct CBU exports and CKD programmes at selected countries.

As for the Energy Efficient Vehicle (EEV) policy, Proton says it’s in the midst of investing in R&D activities involving the development of “advanced powertrains, a new engine family as well as hybrid and other alternative propulsion systems.”

Perodua president and chief executive officer Datuk Aminar Rashid Salleh said the company is mulling over getting into the energy efficient vehicles (EEV) market as the NAP 2014 provided several incentives for manufacturers.

"One of the reasons why we are not in the hybrid and electric cars segment was partly due to the high investment costs, which may translate to higher car prices. Whereas our objective was to produce affordable quality cars.

"Another reason was the weight of battery where it is very important to make compact cars light for better fuel efficiency," he said.