Reuters has reported, citing German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, that Thailand is set to approve the construction of a Volkswagen factory near the port of Bangkok, and that a decision from the Thai investment authority BOI could come as early as next week.
The investment, under Phase 2 of Thailand’s Eco Car programme, would give Volkswagen tax and customs breaks if it produces fuel-efficient cars, provided the facility builds upwards of 100,000 vehicles a year and comes on stream by 2019. BOI officials told the German publication that Volkswagen plans to export cars from Thailand.
The German carmaker has wanted to do this for the longest time – we reported its intention as early as 2008, before it applied to set up a Thai plant earlier this year. Carmakers reportedly had until March 31 to apply for Phase 2.
The requirements of Phase 2 of Thailand’s Eco Car programme include (for the vehicle) a fuel economy under 4.3 litres per 100 km, CO2 emissions under 100 grams per km, engines displacing 1.3 litres and under (petrol) or 1.5 litres and under (diesel), along with Euro 5, R94 and R95 compliance.
Throw in a minimum investment of 6.5 billion baht (RM643 million) and a minimum production of 100,000 units per year by the fourth year of operation, and the excise duty incentive given is 14% (normally 30%); dropping to 12% if the engine is E85-compatible.
Phase 1 Eco Cars include Hondas Brio and Brio Amaze, Mitsubishis Mirage and Attrage, Nissans Almera and March, the Toyota Yaris and the Suzuki Swift. All have 1.2 litre petrol engines in Thailand.
If this was Proton plant, basher would say the robot looks tired.
But this is VW’s so basher praises like heaven in 3…2….1….lol
Tahniah! Syabas! Bravo! to Dr M the father of Thailand automotive industry!
Clap! :: Clap! :: Clap! :: Clap! :: Clap! ::
Hello Tun, see what your PEKEMA friends are causing to Malaysians? VW is one of the largest companies in the world, we just lost about 30 thousand jobs to Thailand.
Does not matter which race gets the job. We just lost about 30,000 jobs to Thailand. Please tell your buddies in MITI to put a complete halt to the PEKEMA brothers.
It has been said that every morning, Tun Mahathir will first open Paul Tan site and chedet site. So, obviously, he reads all the comments here.
Please Tun, pls, we beg you, stop the AP PEKEMA robbers. They are robbing Malaysians of good jobs.
If Tun Mahathir ever read this, please answer me honestly. Is there any slight regret in your heart for creating and protecting PROTON.
And once the price of labour is getting higher, they will move to other countries because they dun have any responsibilities to that country. Pity.
Woi semua u lupa ke vw plant in Pekan!! Both vw n dhas investment valued at rm1billion. Pity all comments here are politically motive n racist!! Typical malaysian know how to complaint only. Thy why our country cannot progress because people’s like you.
Malaysians have already suffered so much. For 30 years, 30 million people suffer so much. We struggle paying for our high car prices all because of one man’s dream of benefiting his friends and relatives through the AP system and the government protecting Proton.
Malaysia was on its way to becoming the Detroit of Asia in the 90s. But the AP system cost us hundreds of billions in ringgit in investments from car companies who moved to Thailand and Indonesia. Car companies got fed up with Malaysia’s MITI for protecting Proton and telling other companies what to price their cars. They got sick and tired of the AP system and how genuine brands cannot get enough APs to import their cars in (like Mercedes, BMW and Honda).
They thought that if they set up their brands and plants in Malaysia, they knew they had to share the pool of APs with the cronies and they knew 90% of all APs go to the cronies. They all moved their operations to Thailand making it the AutoCity of the world. This is one good example by VW.
Recently GM announced that they rolled out already 1 million cars from Thailand. Imagine if GM was in Malaysia and we taxed GM RM10,000 per car. Calculate that with 1 million cars. Just from GM alone, we lost Billions in USD. Imagine what will the amount be from other car companies if they had set up in Malaysia?
Because of Mahathir and his AP system, as well as Proton, we lost hundreds of billion of ringgit in investment and trillions of ringgit from jobs lost. If Malaysia was the autocity of Asia, hundreds of thousands of jobs would have been created for Malaysians. We lost all that. Trillions of Ringgit and hundreds of thousands of jobs. Now, Thailand is benefiting from this trillions lost.
So, in summary, the 30 PEKEMA members and Proton have solely caused Malaysia to lose trillions in investments.
A word of caution to the idiot Madani, Malaysia might even lose existing companies who are already CKDing in Malaysia. BMW, Mercedes, Nissan, Honda and Toyota might even close up their plants in Malaysia to open up in Thailand.
This is so worrisome. Despite Thailand having an unstable economy with riots and bombing, no stable government, yet car companies still prefer Thailand to Malaysia. Makes us wonder…..what is wrong with Malaysia?
Nothing wrong with Malaysia. It is just that the bumiputra is enjoying the “bumiputra lullaby song” sings by the bumiputra.
Well,those bumiputera so-called. Will at last die on their own poison. Pity true Malaysian need to suffer while just a handful of “bumi” enjoyed the benefits.
Malaysia could have been 1st world about 10 years ago if we did not have all the nonsense protectionism policies as well as favourtism. Long ago, we could have been on par with Singapore.
Now, we have one of the lowest GDP per capita in the world. One of the lowest pay packet in the world, whilst Singapore has the 2nd highest GDP per capita in the world. Singaporeans literally earn 5x more than Malaysians and their currency is so strong.
When we go for holiday overseas, our money is so small and tiny. When the Singaporean goes holiday overseas, their money is so strong, they spend lavishly.
Malaysia has lost out so much because of protectionism and favourtism. We could have been first world long ago. Now, don’t think Malaysia will even be first world in 2020, which is 6 years time only. Our currency is so weak, our purchasing power is so weak.
Thank you BN. Thank you UMNO. Let us see more companies running to Thailand and China from Malaysia. Government don’t publish this but so many companies have closed plants in Malaysia and chosen Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia as their plants. This is a big secret in our Government.
Congratulations to MAI Madani Sahari and to Datuk Zainuddin Abdul Rahman from PEKEMA.
We just lost billions in investments and billions in income for about 30,000 to 40,000 jobs for Malaysians.
We may not be 1st world by 2020, but Ah Jib Gor promise us that we be ‘High Income’ by 2020 and so far we are right on track. How not to? Now everyone can drives a P1 or P2.
High on Nothing or high lat lar…
So many vision, so little fruits.
ya kita boleh!!
i hope you realize how stupid and immature your comment is. if u meant it as a joke, nobody is laughing.
Soooo… why Thailand and not Malaysia? If I understand this correctly they are actually making cars, not just assembling.
Well done, Malaysian government.
Because vw dont know or refuse to apply grease at the right place.huge loss for malaysia indeed.
And by allowing VW to come in with Proton, MM will lose control over Proton.
Malaysia will not notice it if we continue to live under a coconut shell. When put into a class of 10 ASEAN nations, we’re falling fast behind.
Will we continue our slumber in class and never learn to make a living in the globalized world. The AP Kings and rent seekers are already hiding their profits in London, Swiss banks and Australia.
Min 30% go down to drain immediate if come here.
removing ap from automotive industry will affect gov income.
here goes our national income + employment
All those P1 P2 pimai pimai tangtu and Amno cybertroopers: scrapping Proton will affect jobs? Yeah, affect positively! Supporting Amno? Menteris get rich, not you! Which Menteri actually spends most of the time in a P1 or P2 and not in German cars? There should be check and balance.
They have rebadged Accord for official fleet, how come they spend most time in German cars?
whow….that’s forward thinking right there, meuang thai chalat mahk!
Congratulations Thailand !
Well Done Malaysia for making our neighbours richer and for digging your own grave deeper !
hahahaha.. how many employment opportunities gone to our neighbor..
It would have been Malaysia if we do not have proton!
That I don’t know about. Proton isn’t as well protected as it used to be, and Dr. M himself said the AP policy was a failure and should go away.
I think it’s more the incentives the government has offered… and the track record. Malaysia is very unstable. EEV incentives? Only valid until the end of 2015. After that? No one knows. Why would you build a factory based on that incentive, if by the time it is completed the rules could be very different?!
They could build the cars in Thailand, and send it as CKD package to Malaysia where some workers attach wheels and doors, and it gets the incentives (apart from the factory in Thailand being ready by 2019, which is too late).
Proton also employ hundred thousand of people directly or indirectly what.
Hundreds of thousands my butt. And most of them lowly paid. Making pieces of crap cars that the rest of the world DON’T WANT TO BUY.
And causing everyone else to pay for APs directly into pockets of AP kings.
Thailand is making cars for the region and exporting = meaning sell more cars, get paid higher.
Proton cannot even beat VW interms of production. How can Proton hire the number of workforce VW can hire? Think!!!
You’re surely brain wasted by Tun sweet-candy word.
Let me see the prove? Hundred thousand?
There goes for one FDI for Malaysia.
What lar current gomen, to make a money pun cannot aaa?
Huhaaa huhaaaa aje lebih…
Haishhh
Malaysia loss the investment again! Thanks to our protection on Proton!
Protect what? Accord 2.4l is 180K in Thai despite no national car there. In here Proton also been high taxed. Is that protection?
national car maker
Cars in Thailand are taxed heavily as well, similar to Malaysia. The reason this went to Thailand is much less regulation and much cheaper labor.
Cars are significantly taxed less in Thailand than in Malaysia. This higher tax protection creates the seams of profits for AP kings to easily korek buta-buta profits for themselves, and some seams for P1 & P2 as well. In Thais are free to competitively import any make/models that they want with import duties but without need to pay any AP rent seekers.
The important thing is that there is a level playing field in Thailand for everyone. There is no protected players with protections, subsidies, grants, etc. which has for many decades proven to be a waste of national resources.
That’s not answering my question, whether the tax is higher or lower in Thai, at the end of the day the price cannot be cheaper than in bolehland. Accord 2.4l is 180K in Thai! That’s similar price in bolehland!
You need to have the knowledge on what cause it to be 180k, once we have educated people, it won’t happen anymore. I’m not even sure if you’ll ever understand.
Off topic:-
Uber banned in German
http://www.autoblog.com/2014/09/02/uber-banned-germany/
If you know off-topic, why the fark did you post for?
Wow, Is it means that HICOM will not assemble VW CKD cars in the future? And also this means that Malaysia need to compete with Thailand to become the energy efficient automotive hub in asia.
VW won’t be pricing any lower just because it’s Thai made.
i don’t think this is a threat to Proton as Malaysian’s will NOT be buying VW since now people know it’s cheap production too!
Actually, I would trust Thai made cars more than malaysian assembled cars.
Thai made cars are to export (and some reasonable deduction may be applied that they are made to export quality), Malaysian assembled cars are locally consumed.
Who cares about proton. Malaysians will plainly lose out…THE END. Not only will we not benefit from additional jobs and FDI from VW, DRB HICOM might even lose out the contract to assemble VW here. So the folks that are currently assembling VW, your number is up.
bodoh, Proton also make to export.
Only export to a few countries, some people in other countries also use Proton as car bomb.
Export??? What is the quantity?? Please ask proton to show how much car has sold to other country.Talk is cheap then do.
only 300 cars like that in aussie..bolehland so good
Another loss for Malaysia. Indonesia with its much younger motor industry has already overtaken us in production volume. If our government does not buck up and make a proper NAP, the up and coming markets like Myanmar and Vietnam may just overtake us in the future followed by Cambodia. At that point i wonder which country will our ministers compare too?? Somalia??
Indonesia has opened up in the past years, some good quality Malaysians who got rejected in Malaysia are also working there as expats to help the Indon. to progress.
this is the result of the “Prosper Thy Neighbour” policy that Tun Dr Mahathir so espoused during his reign. :-)
Indeed another good news.
In order to save a bunch of PEKEMA bumiputra, we just lost thousands of bumiputra job opportunities. So my bumiputra friend, that is what the “bumiputra game” all about.
Happy 57th Merdeka Year my bumiputra friend. Let the “bumiputra game” is played for another donkey years.
Reading your comment regarding bumiputra, I wonder if Hafiz is your real name.
He may not be a Malay Muslim lah bradder, Hafiz can be a Sabahan or Sarawakian non Muslim.
kawan, I am a bumiputera. Most bumiputera know only the UMNO and BN people are the ones benefitting from all the privileges. I know of a Bumi, buying 3 RM5 million houses and asking his 8%
Haven’t you heard of rich BN guys buying a 5 million ringgit houses and yet asking their 8% discount?
So which is better for a country?
A Malaysian model that tries to promote both local design and manufacturing.
Or the Thai Model that doesn’t care about local design and focuses entirely on manufacturing.
The problem with only doing manufacturing is of course that once there is a cheaper place to produce the factory will just move. That is why all countries want to do more than manufacturing. Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, … Start with manufacturing for others with cheap labour. Then copy others. Then do your own designs and dominate the world. If you stay with manufacturing only you can’t ever raise wages.
We tried that for 40 years and failed at huge unaccounted costs. Remember also the purchase of Agusta for RM368m and later injected more money to develop the Italian motorcycle maker, and sold it for 1 Euro after making a huge mess. Lotus is a mess too.
When it is enough to stop protecting Proton and claw back unjustified funding, and auction it off with a reserved price of RM1.
The result that NAP had expected. Seems that Only Cap ayam manufacturers and their ilks are attracted to set up base here. Congratulations to our administrators for the strategic delays in coming up with the NAP and the introduction of euro 5 diesel. All this is the result of trying to protect the 30 year old spoilt child who is taking his time to be independent from us, the tax paying rakyat.
Congratulations to MAI for this bit of news. All your studies and meetings have really borne fruit finally.
Congratulations to MAI for this bit of news. All your studies and meetings have really borne fruit finally.
Congratulations to MAI for this bit of news. All your studies and meetings have really borne fruit finally.
So sad. Another big investment going somewhere else. AFTA is a great equaliser.
Malaysian will have to go Thailand looking for job in year 2020. Well done Tun.
But go back to bolehland because it’s already closed and gone elsewhere
asian detroit getting more bigger and robust, oh malaysiaku yang tercinta…
Big win for Thailand. Sad thing is we literally gave this one away.
Thailand +1. Malaysia -10.
another good things on the NAP where big investment goes to Kingdom of Smile…
so call national car project already give other asean countries so many big investment…
Meanwhile, the gov is saying abolishment of AP will hurt PEKEMA pocket
Sad to hear this during our Independence period. I know it’s unrelated but I can’t help but be affected by it. What would our forefathers think? Our forefathers who fought and sacrifice so much for everyone and this country is going to waste only to see a few greedy air-heads still pushing and protecting failed projects and systems only because they want everything for themselves.
Mybe vw sudah merajuk oledi dulu they want to buy Proton then Drb potong line dulu..last2 Drb yg beli now they are sudah melajuk…haiya..
Thailand make cars.
We assemble cars like small kids after 40 years of NAP
Still in kindergarten.
We design and make cars too, by Proton.
Yeah, no more vw in Malaysia, glad to hear that.
beribu ribu tahniah…even thailand so messed up still attractive to investors…imagine if thailand peaceful…malaysian gone case
Exchange rate the main factor……..
The main reason Thailand has upper hand due to exchange rate + low cost human capital… As expected.. To build up Malaysian Automotive Industry actually is good. The player to much rely on Proton & Produa, doesn’t improve skill, knowledge & etc. If compared to MAI age, the player should be able to make good/better/high quality component for others car maker with reasonable price. This what Govt idea but most the player didn’t took it serious, just think profit + money in their head. So if this idea can realize, doesn’t matter if car maker invest in Thailand, Vietnam,Indonesia or else cause MAI player can supply car part to them as long they have good reputation… but this wouldn’t happen cause after more than 20 yrs, MAI player still depend on spoon feed…..
Agreed.
The main reason Thailand has the upper hand is the cheap labour. Here we have minimum wage, a major distraction to any investor.
Even malaysian is investing abroad.
Another job opportunities for malaysians lost to Thailand…..welldone and congrats to our policymakers……
working in a company that has facilities in thailand and malaysia..
You guys can complain about govt policies and whatnot, but the REAL thing im worried about is not the taxes… the Thai people are just much more disciplined and technically savvy in manufacturing than the ordinary malaysian.
In Malaysia, technicians and engineers cant solve things for nuts ( all handed back to vendor ), in Thailand their technicians literally pieced back all the equipment after the devastating floods in 2011…
LCD monitor dalam air, kite beli baru, mereka bukak keringkan, tukar 1-2 component, run balik…
you guys all blame government only, maybe true, but I can guarantee you this attitude of blaming will bring us into deeper mess. Everything oso ask from gomen/blame gomen… WTF
That’s not really important for a big company and bolehland workers are not that stupid, they can also solve things.
not really important for a big company?
dude i work for a fortune 500… and trust me they can see the difference
its not just the cost for the monitor as exemplified, its TIME. example for a complex machine
you repair it , cost = 100 usd downtime = 30 minutes
vendor come in, cost = 6000++ usd,downtime = 48hours to a week
the one week downtime probably costed you output worth 1-2 million USD
and i can tell you.. the cost of training and keeping employees is actually >>> capital costs!
malaysians are not dumb, some of us a frigging smart, but overall we are friggin lazy
We need to educate more ppl about it (Open AP, NAP, etc), it’s our responsibility to let everyone know the truth, including those in small town and kampung, please help Malaysian. Only with knowledge will bring the CHANGE.
What truth? 180K 2.4l Accord in Thai is similar price in bolehland? Where got high tax here?
The knowledge and truth about Open AP, where is the money ended for Open AP? Who pocketed the free money in the pocket system?
Knowledge and truth of why they invested so much in Thai.
Do we need a much better education system? A better policy? Do we have the knowledge?
That is how vendors do well in Bolehland
not surprise that VW set up factory in thai.
Every maker will do so.
Policy transparancy, well supply chain,etc.
Fair to investor and thai ppl.
We lost Toyota, Honda, GM, Ford, because of bunch ppl and interest.
There is no suprise that VW goes there.
We lost million job opportunity.
Imagine how many parts in a car?
How many process required?
How many supplier, factory, vendor we need?
How many Malaysian worker required?
This total supply chain will build millions of job oppoturnity. Who dare say national car can build more jobs, better life, more safety car for Malaysian?
No matter what race/color you are. Think deeply.
All Malaysia’s policy, only benefit for hundred ppl.