MITI hopes to finalise review of NAP by Q3

SHAH ALAM: Minister of International Trade and Industry Datuk Mustapa Mohamed said yesterday the government hoped to finalise the review on the National Automotive Policy (NAP) by the third quarter of this year.

The NAP was introduced in 2006 in an industry involving not less than 150,000 people in the areas of automotive production, sales, distribution and financing.

Speaking to reporters after visiting the assembly line of Proton Exora, at Proton’s factory yesterday, Mustapa said he had also sought input from Proton on the NAP.

The new NAP would have a clear policy for the future of Proton and other companies including component manufacturers, vendors and distributors.

Asked if any weaknesses had been identified in the existing NAP, Mustapa said that it was not so much weakness but more about refining and improving on the present policy.

With the economy going through a difficult period now, there is a need for the Malaysian automotive industry to build its capacity, he said.

“We got to position ourselves to meet future challenges and we know in some major countries that have been right-sizing, there has been reexamination of strategy. So whatever we do, we should be in line with current global development,” he said.

Mustapa said among the feedbacks the ministry received was the need to identify which manufacturers qualified as producing national cars and therefore qualified to obtain the incentives provided by the government.

Another issue to tackle is the existence of Asean-made cars brought into the domestic market with five percent import tax, he said.

Previously, there were no different policies for cars manufactured or assembled in Asean countries and for cars imported from Europe, he said.

Touching on the reform of Approved Permit (AP) permit, he said his ministry was embarking on a second round of audit of the implementation of AP before revising the policy.

Last year, he said MITI has conducted a survey on AP in the third quarter of last year and a number of findings has been highlighted to the ministry.

“Hopefully by the third quarter of 2009, we would come out with our position on the AP,” he said.

He also said Proton is ready to face the competition in the international market and was already a competitive car maker.

To a question on the response from the public to scrap older vehicles more than 15 years in order to get RM5,000 discount for buying new national cars, Mustapa said so far only 5,000 people had taken up the incentive.

“That number is a bit on the low side and the government has asked Proton and EPU, to see how we can encourage car owners to come forward,” he said.

Meanwhile, Proton Holdings Bhd Managing Director Datuk Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir said Proton and its dealers would increase the promotion of the car scrapping programme.

Touching on the local automotive industry scenario, Mustapa said for the first three months of this year production of total passenger vehicles decreased 15.3 per cent to 102,328 units from 120,844 units in the corresponding period of 2008.

Production of commercial vehicles also declined by 1.8 per cent to 11,681 units in January to March this year from 11,900 in the first three months of last year.

— Bernama