KUALA LUMPUR: The National Automotive Policy 2020 (NAP 2020) has set highly ambitious targets including expanding the economic contribution of the local automotive industry to RM104.2bil by 2030 (from RM40 billion).
Other targets of the new policy, which has a 10-year framework from 2020 to 2030, include growing the TIV (total industry volume) to 1.22 million units (from 604,287 units in 2019), and creating 323,000 job opportunities.
The NAP 2020 was launched by Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad at the International Trade and Industry Ministry (MITI).
Also present were MITI minister Datuk Darell Leiking and deputy minister Dr Ong Kian Ming.
In his speech, Dr Mahathir also said the palm biodiesel blend at fuel pumps will be enhanced to B30 (diesel mix consisting of 30% palm methyl ester and 70% petroleum diesel) before the year 2025 or even earlier.
"To facilitate the implementation, NAP 2020 will provide supporting measures including the development of standards for testing and research to support the increase in blending of palm oil biodiesel," he said.
Earlier this week, the B20 programme was launched in the country and the use of the biofuel will be adopted throughout Peninsular Malaysia by June 2021.
The B20 programme was introduced in Langkawi and Labuan in January, and will be expanded in stages to Sarawak in April, Sabah in August, before covering the country’s 3,400 fuel stations.
Dr Mahathir also noted that the Malaysian automotive industry employ more than 600,000 people and contribute four per cent to Malaysia’s economy.
"There are more than 20 manufacturing and assembly plants in the country producing passenger and commercial vehicles, as well as motorcycles and scooters. Moving downstream, there are about 53,000 aftermarket establishments and more than 600 automotive parts and component manufacturers that range from body panels, trim parts, powertrain parts, rubber parts and electrical and electronic parts," he said.
Dr Mahathir pointed out that there were many sceptics when the government actively promoted a local automotive industry 35 years ago.
"But today, Malaysia has become one of the most competitive markets for the automotive industry, and it has gone through many phases of development with many success stories to be told," he said.
The NAP 2020 will focus on Next Generation Vehicle (NxGV), Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR4.0).
The new policy's booklet defines a NxGV as an EEV (energy efficient vehicle) that is enhanced with Intelligent Mobility applications with minimum of Level 3 Vehicle Automation.
NAP 2020 aims to develop NxGV standards, for market penetration by 2025.
As for MaaS, this provides a wide range of transportation options such as a combination of public transport services and private vehicles, besides enabling users to enjoy other services such as optimised product delivery services and online health diagnostics.
Through MaaS, the future development of Autonomous vehicles would allow the public to use roads on a lower cost per kilometre, as self-navigating vehicles operate at a significantly lower cost than current taxi and ridesharing prices.
Meanwhile, the use of IR4.0-related technology applications especially AI (Artificial Intelligence), Big Data Analytics (BDA) and IoT (Internet of Things) will enable the implementation of NxGV and MaaS.
