KUALA LUMPUR: China is collaborating with Malaysia to transfer advanced Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) manufacturing technology for local and global use.
Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, said that a Chinese company has agreed to collaborate with Universiti Kuala Lumpur (UniKL) to train local talent in UAV assembly and manufacturing as part of the initiative.
"They (the Chinese company) are keen to transfer their technology to UniKL, where UniKL students will learn UAV technology and manufacturing techniques.
"Next month, they will be in Sepang at the Universiti Kuala Lumpur Malaysian Institute of Aviation Technology (UniKL MIAT) to begin training on assembling Chinese-made UAVs.
"Next year, they will invest RM100 million in a permanent facility (to build their factory), in addition to transferring technology and training students under the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programme to specialise in UAV technology, particularly in the maintenance segment," Zahid said.
Earlier, he witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Mara Corporation's subsidiary, Mara Aerospace & Technologies Sdn Bhd, and Honeycomb Aerospace Technologies (Beijing) Co Ltd.
The MoU was signed by Honeycomb Aerospace General Manager, Liu Tiejun, and Mara Corporation Group CEO, Zulkarnain Taman, and witnessed by Zahid and Mara Chairman, Datuk Dr Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki.
Honeycomb Aerospace, one of China's top three UAV companies, is capable of producing UAVs with flight endurance of up to 3,000 hours and equipped with cameras capable of monitoring distances of up to 300 kilometres (km).
Zahid, who is also Minister of Rural and Regional Development, further explained that the collaboration could be extended to other educational institutions, including public universities, if the demand for local and global UAV technology continues to grow.
"At present, educational institutions with similar interests to UniKL MIAT include Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) and four other TVET universities.
"If the demand for UAVs increases significantly, we will expand this collaboration to other local institutions," he said.
Zahid also highlighted the potential use of high-tech UAVs for border security surveillance, as well as meeting the needs of the agriculture and plantation sectors.
"Border security surveillance is still in the early stages, and we may explore this further in the future. They proposed using fibre optics, but we are also considering UAVs as they seem more effective.
"Given that these UAVs have cameras capable of monitoring up to 300 km, they could be used not only in Peninsular Malaysia but also in Sabah and Sarawak, where we have vast land borders in Borneo," he added.
Zahid also mentioned that once their factory is established in Malaysia, the company plans to produce 3,000 UAVs annually.