TANJUNG MALIM: The long-awaited revised National Automotive Policy (NAP) is scheduled to be announced in early 2020, said International Trade and Industry Minister (MITI) Datuk Darrell Leiking.
He said the government and various related-agencies such as the Malaysia Automotive Robotics and IoT Institute (MARii) have together collected inputs in revising the new policy.
"Some people have said why so late to announce the revised NAP? I think MITI officials and MARii had considered and taken a lot of opinions given by the industry.
"We have to look into new emerging technologies that are available today and we have to incorporate a lot of them before announcing the new NAP,” he said at the launch of the locally assembled Proton X70 here today.
Darrell said the new NAP will cover the entire automotive ecosystem and be underpinned by the new elements of technology namely Next Generation Vehicle (NXGV), Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and Industrial Revolution 4.0.
“The new NAP will be a holistic policy that covers the comprehensive development of automotive industry such as development of charging facilities, supply chain, human capital and after market, on top of stimulating production of more advanced vehicles,” he added.
First introduced in 2006, the NAP was aimed at facilitating the required transformation and integration of the local automotive industry with regional and global networks within the increasingly competitive environment.
Subsequently, the policy was reviewed in 2009 followed by another revision was made in 2014 that saw local automotive sector transitioning into greener technology for energy efficient vehicles (EEVs) with an ultimate objective to make Malaysia as the regional EEV hub by 2020.
Darrell said the introduction of the new NAP was timely as it will focus on ensuring the domestic industry continues to be competitive with the emergence of new disruptive technologies which will transform the sector to connected mobility.