Malaysia yesterday launched a new mass market car project, as it looks to boost development and adoption of high technology in a renewed industrial push by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
Southeast Asia’s third-largest economy is spurring industry to embrace technology so as to increase productivity and counter growing external risks from an escalating trade dispute between the US and China.
The new project, spearheaded by Malaysian firm DreamEDGE, is to be developed with technical assistance from Japan’s Daihatsu Motor Corp, Malaysian Minister of International Trade and Industry Darell Leiking said.
“It’s privately funded, with no government funding at all,” Darell told a news conference. “We will support anything that is Malaysian made ... as long as no government money is expended or used.”
Daihatsu, a subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corp, owns a stake in Perodua, Malaysia’s second homegrown automaker and its best-selling brand.
The domestic car industry has long been a sore point for Malaysians, who saw billions of ringgit in taxpayers’ funds spent to bail out Mahathir’s pet project, Proton, before it was bought by Chinese automaker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co (浙江吉利控股集團) in 2017.
Darell said the new marque, which has yet to be named, would offer affordable vehicles loaded with advanced technology.
The first model, which is likely to be a C-segment sedan powered by either an advanced internal combustion engine or hybrid system, is expected to hit the road by March 2021, DreamEDGE founder and CEO Khairil Adri Adnan said.
The company is still considering its fundraising options, but expects that it would need “a few hundred million” ringgit to meet its production goal, Khairil said.
Domestically produced cars formed a key part of Mahathir’s strategy to turn Southeast Asia’s third-largest economy from an agricultural backwater to an industrialized nation during his first tenure as prime minister from 1981 to 2003.
Mahathir championed the new car project last year, on his return to power following an unprecedented election win by his opposition coalition in May.
EXTRATERRITORIAL REACH: China extended its legal jurisdiction to ban some dual-use goods of Chinese origin from being sold to the US, even by third countries Beijing has set out to extend its domestic laws across international borders with a ban on selling some goods to the US that applies to companies both inside and outside China. The new export control rules are China’s first attempt to replicate the extraterritorial reach of US and European sanctions by covering Chinese products or goods with Chinese parts in them. In an announcement this week, China declared it is banning the sale of dual-use items to the US military and also the export to the US of materials such as gallium and germanium. Companies and people overseas would be subject to
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) yesterday said that Intel Corp would find itself in the same predicament as it did four years ago if its board does not come up with a core business strategy. Chang made the remarks in response to reporters’ questions about the ailing US chipmaker, once an archrival of TSMC, during a news conference in Taipei for the launch of the second volume of his autobiography. Intel unexpectedly announced the immediate retirement of former chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger last week, ending his nearly four-year tenure and ending his attempts to revive the
WORLD DOMINATION: TSMC’s lead over second-placed Samsung has grown as the latter faces increased Chinese competition and the end of clients’ product life cycles Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) retained the No. 1 title in the global pure-play wafer foundry business in the third quarter of this year, seeing its market share growing to 64.9 percent to leave South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co, the No. 2 supplier, further behind, Taipei-based TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report. TSMC posted US$23.53 billion in sales in the July-September period, up 13.0 percent from a quarter earlier, which boosted its market share to 64.9 percent, up from 62.3 percent in the second quarter, the report issued on Monday last week showed. TSMC benefited from the debut of flagship
TENSE TIMES: Formosa Plastics sees uncertainty surrounding the incoming Trump administration in the US, geopolitical tensions and China’s faltering economy Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), Taiwan’s largest industrial conglomerate, yesterday posted overall revenue of NT$118.61 billion (US$3.66 billion) for last month, marking a 7.2 percent rise from October, but a 2.5 percent fall from one year earlier. The group has mixed views about its business outlook for the current quarter and beyond, as uncertainty builds over the US power transition and geopolitical tensions. Formosa Plastics Corp (台灣塑膠), a vertically integrated supplier of plastic resins and petrochemicals, reported a monthly uptick of 15.3 percent in its revenue to NT$18.15 billion, as Typhoon Kong-rey postponed partial shipments slated for October and last month, it said. The
RSS