KUALA LUMPUR: The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Miti) is committed to having consultations and discussions with important stakeholders on the review of the National Automotive Policy (NAP), which will focus on the entire automotive sector, including the supply and value chains.
Deputy Minister Dr Ong Kian Ming (pix) said the review of the NAP is still ongoing and had not been finalised.
“It is unfortunate that Rembau Member of Parliament (MP) Khairy Jamaluddin chose to highlight one small reference to a nascent technology (for the purposes of standards setting) in the discussion document, rather than give attention to the larger challenge at hand, which is how to develop and grow the entire automotive landscape in Malaysia.
“Miti is open to consider any concrete suggestions from the MP for Rembau on the automotive sector,” he said in a statement, in reply to Khairy’s tweet on the NAP review document which highlighted the word “flying vehicle”.
Ong said the document was part of a presentation which Miti gave to the automotive industry for its stakeholder engagement in the review of the automotive policy.
He said the presentation contained a disclaimer which clearly stated that the document was a draft and provided for discussion purposes only and subject to change and did not commit the government of Malaysia”.
The deputy minister also said that in the same consultative document, the discussion on the new national car project was focused on new technologies, including anticipating a next generation vehicle (NxGV), which will be an energy efficient vehicle (EEV) with Industrial Revolution 4.0 and artificial intelligence, as well as mobility-as-a-service characteristics.
“There was no mention of a flying vehicle in the discussion on the national car project,” he said.
“The slide shown by the MP of Rembau in his Tweet was under the technology development subtopic and was in the context of setting standards and specifications for many types of vehicles, including NxGV, commercial vehicles and motorcycles that are EEVs and/or electric vehicles.
Ong added that the inclusion of a discussion on flying vehicles was to address the need for standards and regulations should there be a demand for application of such technology by the automotive industry in future. — Bernama
