By Yamin Vong
IN the first test of the whole-of-government approach to the pandemic, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and the Ministry of Finance have taken their first tentative steps to reboot the auto sector.
Under the new Movement Control Order (MCO) announced April 10 the government announced that the auto sector would be allowed to start up the export production lines.
“I believe that the pandemic is affecting most countries especially the countries where we export to – that’s ASEAN. Most are on lockdown and they would want to delay the CBU (completely built-up units) arrival,” said Datuk Seri Ben Yeoh, the CEO of Bermaz Bhd.
“Only parts manufacturers exporting to Japan may need to start production and resume their exports to Japan. Our Malaysian assembled Mazda CX-5 and CX-8 are only exported to Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia and Laos,” said Yeoh.
Bermaz is the single biggest exporter of assembled-in-Malaysia Mazda cars while Perodua, BMW and Mercedes-Benz combined exported less than 8,000 cars last year.
An automotive industry participant argued that the new MCO’s liberalisation was a good first step because auto exports are only about 20,000 cars a year and on this small scale, the industry would be able to establish the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) guidelines in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and social distancing in an automotive assembly environment.
Going into the details of the matter, Malaysia Automotive Association President, Datuk Aishah Ahmad, said that she was checking whether this meant both the cars that had been completed for export, but which were still in the plant waiting to be shipped, as well as car bodies which were destined for exports but which were still on the assembly line.
On a similar note, the auto industry participant also asked that the government allow the opening of the showrooms.
“We have many sales that are pending. If we can open the showrooms, then we can close as many sales as possible,” he said. The new MCO allows for the opening of auto service centres and most of the new car service centres are part of a 3S concept — Sales, Spares and Service.
Not to be left out, companies are jumping into the arena of on-line sales so that there’s no problem with social distancing.
Sites like EZAuto, carlist.my and myTukar are aggressively promoting their site. The latest product is Carlist.my’s “Book from Home”. It’s piloting video listings to promote its car sales. – April 13, 2020, Focus M.
