KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 20 — Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz has 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 (CAGR) of about 33 per cent 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 support multinationals’ regional hub ambitions.
“Apart from our strategic location, good infrastructure and rule of law, we also have a highly-established electrical and electronics (E&E) industry which has been reliably feeding the other industries, including aerospace, renewable energy and EVs,” he said in his keynote address at the UMW Toyota Beyond Zero event, here, today.
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 per cent of TIV in 2022 to 4.12 per cent 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.
In preparing for the zero-emission vehicle transition, through the National Automotive Policy (NAP) 2020, 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.
The National Net Zero goal is also supported by NAP 2020 and Hydrogen Economy and Technology Roadmap (HETR) 2023-2050, among others.
On the industry’s high demand for skilled talent, he said Miti will continue to collaborate with the Human Resource Ministry and Higher Education Ministry to ensure that the industry’s requirements for skilled workers are fulfilled.
“We have already started by suggesting a short-term solution, which is to open up our job market selectively to foreign graduates with the targeted qualifications to address the talent gap, while also working on long-term measures to increase domestic students’ enrolment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects and the technical and vocational education and training track,” he said.
As far as energy-efficient vehicles and EVs are concerned, the government has set up the National EV Steering Committee last year, which is a Cabinet Committee comprising key ministries such as Finance; Transport; Science, Technology and Innovation; and Housing and Local Government.
In building the necessary infrastructure to achieve the target of having 20 per cent of TIV for EVs (including hydrogen fuel cells) by 2030, 50 per cent of TIV by 2040, and 80 per cent of TIV by 2050, Zafrul said the 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.
— Bernama
