MAI inks agreement with Indonesian counterpart for collaboration in automotive industry

PETALING JAYA: The Malaysia Automotive Institute (MAI) and Institut Otomatif Indonesia(IOI) inked a memorandum of agreement(MoA) to foster long-term collaboration in the area of automotive industry development.
The agreement, which is meant to formalise the mutual collaboration and strengthen the strategic and working relationship between MAI and IOI, focuses on human capital development, supply chain development, identification of market opportunities, automotive industry technology, quality enhancement, and research collaboration in the area of automotive industry development in both countries.
The signing was held in conjunction with Minister of International Trade and Industry Darell Leiking's working visit to Indonesia. It was witnessed by Indonesia's Director-General for International Industrial Access and Development, Ministry of Industry I Gusti Putu Suryawirawan.
"Indonesia has long been a close trading partner of Malaysia. From 2006-2017, bilateral trade had improved significantly, almost doubled from US$9.02 billion in 2006, to US$16.89 billion last year. The 2017 figure represents 4.1% of Malaysia's global trade, thus making Indonesia our 7th largest trading partner globally. This should be seen as an early success for MAI and IOI. However, we must not rest on our laurels. Moving forward, MAI and IOI must continue to support and facilitate partnerships between both countries," said Darell.
Meanwhile, MAI CEO Datuk Madani Sahari said MAI and IOI will continue to support and facilitate the partnerships through various developmental programmes.
The two institutions will organise more programmes to explore potential market opportunities towards greater business-to-business (B2B) cooperation between the automotive industry players in both countries.
Since the two institutions began collaborating in 2017, a total of 10 Malaysian automotive companies have established business partnerships with its Indonesian counterparts, demonstrating an ever growing symbiosis between the two nations as regional trading partners.
In March, MAI and IOI organised a joint business matching programme between Malaysian and Indonesian automotive vendors.
This programme served as a platform for both Malaysian and Indonesian automotive vendors to identify potential business partners for greater market access in both countries. The programme was participated by 18 Malaysian and 30 Indonesian vendors from various automotive manufacturing clusters, in which 10 Malaysian vendors have successfully identified their potential business partners from Indonesia.