Volkswagen in talks with potential CKD assemblers
Its interesting watching a new car manufacturer set up base in a country where its not had its presence around except through grey imports in a long time. Its kind of like building a new base in real time strategy games. Volkswagen AG has just officially launched its Malaysian headquarters in Wisma UOA Damansara.
Part of Volkswagen AGs long term plans in Malaysia is to introduce CKD models by 2008 while selling CBU models in the mean while, but circumstances have changed. Volkswagen is in talks with 3 local partners for assembly of CKD kits for the German marques cars. Launching CKD models by 2008 would only give it about 1.5 to 2 years to build its brand and dealership network.
This is an ideal case scenario of course. A lot of strange things can happen in the Malaysian automotive industry. Im sure all of my readers know.
Its not known which are the local partners that Volkswagen AG are in talks with because they include listed companies. It would probably affect share prices too much. Prices of the listed companies would go up upon this announcement, and when only one company gets chosen to assemble the CKD kits, the other two would go down. Protons was a good example.
Volkswagen AGs total investment in Malaysia has been about 9.5 million Euros so far, which is about RM 42 million and Volkswagen is committed to making Malaysia its regional hub due to its stability, infrastructure and resources.
February 17, 2006 @ 7:49 am
good for smi industries in malaysia…
May 8, 2006 @ 10:29 pm
[...] This will make the models that Volkswagen originally planned to bring in uncompetitive, effectly killing them even before they start to be sold here. Volkswagen still has plans to assemble cars in Malaysia, as well as make Malaysia one of it’s regional hubs but there has to be some change in plans on how to achieve those targets. It recently launched it’s Malaysian headquarters in Wisma UOA Damansara and has invested RM42 million ringgit in Malaysia so far. It has also appointed AutoStadt Asia Sdn Bhd as the sole importer of Volkswagen cars in the country, is in discussions with Cycle and Carriage Bintang on distributorship, and has started talking to potential CKD assemblers. [...]