Global Crisis Will Impact Automotive Market This Year

June 25, 2009 21:36 PM

Global Crisis Will Impact Automotive Market This Year

By: Ramjit

-->

KUALA LUMPUR, June 25 (Bernama) -- The impact of the global economic crisis is expected to affect the Malaysian automotive market this year, leading to a lower total industry volume (TIV).

Minister of International Trade and Industry, Datuk Mustapa Mohamed, said industry feedback has indicated that the TIV was expected to fall by an average of 12.4 percent this year.

However, he said, the performance of Malaysian automotive industry remained relatively stable where the TIV for last year was the second highest despite the global uncertainties.

Last year, Malaysia recorded the highest sales for passenger cars among the six major Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) markets, which was 37 percent of total sales in Asean 6.

"I believe such achievement is made possible by the strong collaboration between the government and the industry in effort to develop the industry and also most of all due to the preparedness and prompt counter-measures taken by the local auto industry at the onset of global recession," he said when delivering his keynote address at the 2009 Frost and Sullivan Asia Pacific Automotive Awards

The lesson learned from the financial crisis in 1997 as well as aggressive campaign via the introduction of new models had in may ways helped the industry by sustaining consumer interest to purchase new vehicles, he said.

On the auto scrapping programme, Mustapha said the response has been encouraging with a total of 11,583 vouchers issued by both Proton and Perodua valued at RM34.74 million.

Under the second stimulus package on March 10, 2009, the government has allocated RM100 million to assist Proton and Perodua in their auto scrapping programme.

A discount of RM5,000 is given to car owner who voluntarily scraps his car of at least 10 years old.

Going forward, Mustapha said, the government would continue to support the industry and to undertake measures which would contribute towards enhancing the business environment in the country.

Proton Saga won Malaysia Best Model of The Year while Perodua Viva is Malaysia's Best Value For Money Model of The Year.

Sales of vehicles from January to April 2009 declined by 11.7 percent to 159816 units from 181,130 units in the corresponding period of 2008.

In terms of vehicle financing, total loans approved for the first four months of 2009 valued at RM11.5 billion.

-- BERNAMA

We provide (subscription-based)  news coverage in our Newswire service.

Click