Malaysia has invited American businesses to take a closer look at the country as a preferred investment destination in various areas, including the automotive sector. The call was made by prime minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob yesterday in Washington, where he is currently on a four-day working visit, Bernama reports.
He welcomed corporations, especially Fortune 500 companies, to invest or increase their investment in Malaysia, especially in the areas of digital economy and green technology as well as the electric vehicle sector. To this end, he said that he had invited American electric carmaker Tesla to look at Malaysia as a production hub.
“I’ve suggested to Tesla to invest in Malaysia in producing electric cars,” he told Malaysian journalists following a meeting with Ted Osius, president and CEO of the US-Asean Business Council (US-ABC) in Washington.
Ismail said he has asked the US-ABC, which represents 170 major American businesses in Southeast Asia, to play a bigger role in attracting investments to ASEAN, especially Malaysia. He added that the council regarded Malaysia as an important trading partner of the United States.
Malaysia’s overtures to the American EV maker are well behind the actual discussions accomplished by Indonesia, which has long been in talks with Tesla on the probability of setting up a factory in the republic to make batteries for its EVs.
Those discussions fell through in March, apparently because Tesla was only interested in building batteries for energy storage systems (i.e. its Powerwall) instead of that for its cars. However, it was reported last month that Indonesia had restarted talks with Tesla boss Elon Musk to join the country’s burgeoning nickel and EV industry.
The country has long been pushing for investments in EV and battery manufacturing, touting its reserves of nickel and cobalt – used in the production of lithium-ion batteries – as well as bauxite, which can be turned into aluminium. Indonesia, which has the world’s biggest nickel reserves, wants to build a full supply chain for extracting battery chemicals from the metal rather than simply exporting it.
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I wonder if it’s as easy as just suggesting.. without actually having any actual incentives in place..
maybe he suggested it in BM, that will make all the difference
Naw, Elon has no intentions to invest in this region. He doesn’t even market his cars here so to him ASEAN is nothing. PM Sabri met him only cuz he is in the USA and he is in his role as PM to promote our country to Elon. No harm there. Indons are doing it too but they got scammed.
There is official Tesla 3S presence in Singapore.
Don’t believe the hype. With less than 15 percent of global market share, Tesla is getting 90 percent of the (Western media) hype. Same with Apple phones. Tip for government – go after the less high profile but steadily growing big volume players, for wider benefits for everybody.
Ok well done. Got chance see him talk to Elon la
Too late
So does Elon need to learn BM first???
a very good topic. one of the plus points for Malaysia is always being a fairly large English speaking nation after Singapore. this makes international companies show more interest. BM is the national language and it will never fade but we must insist that all can speak English. the international language. this is one edge we have over Thailand and Vietnam and even Indonesia. PM must push to make English the true Business language in Malaysia.
Already preferred language in all private sectors
u labor penoh, tapi i mau 51%
share. cakab melayu boleh bejaya cikit
Yup. Easy ride. That’s why many foreign investor don’t want to invest in our country. Because of many stupid policies (from gov) to them. Please wake up, even now we are behind vietnam.
So.. what advantage, infrastructure and incentives are we providing to foreign companies? What have they done that’s making Malaysia an attractive proposition? What differentiator do we have? We don’t even have the domestic market size as our neighbors that secured major automotive investments.
We have absolutely no advantage, nothing that makes us attractive to any foreign automotive company anymore.
We totally missed the boat. Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam were way ahead of us.
market size? do you think Tesla will sell like japanese car in Indonesia. they will export it to all asia market. they just need cheaper option to setup the factory and low labour cost.
We are not missing any boats. He is just doing his job as our PM and Tesla are not investing in any of those countries you mentioned, so your comments makes no sense.
Don’t forget bro Malaysia is no 1 with most obese population in Asia. That’s why malaysia is still no 1 in Asia.
That means you have not seen super fat Aussies with beer gut sticking out of tiny legs like an acacia tree.
stupid chinese..western trust malays more than china ma..confirmed coming
haha..
invest to breed penyu please…. more eggs for him
Cars made here will be taxed heavily in other asean counyries because we opt out of asean free trade zone for cars due to proton.nobody will Invest here unless we participate in afta for cars.
Autopilot is illegal here wor
Even before giving any incentive also also not so attractive due to the some policy in place for hiring employee and partnership requirement.
You dont invite this giant to invest. You BEG them to invest. Because Elon dont need you. You need him.
Indon is begging to the max to Elon
With the extent of human rights abuse on foreign labor that Malaysia participates in, along with having a incoherent domestic workforce, Musk would stay tf away from investing in Malaysia by a country stretch of a mile.
You’re not getting Tesla production anytime soon my friends, first come up with policies that don’t participate in institutionalised racism against those that work in your country then expect companies to pay heed to your requests.
What a bunch of Morons!
Might as well ask Mr.Elon takeover Malaysia
Mouth talk only? What has this minister done to attract Tesla to invest here? With his mindset that force employers to increase minimum paid to make employees life better without improved productivity?
At least show the proposal first! Need to work hard to tender a project.
hello, we already have tax free for a few years, pekema selling so many tesla here, not enough for you?
Who is the beneficiary for those types of tax exemption? With the tax, Tesla just sell at higher price. Without the tax, Teala sell at lower price but still consider expensive for most of us.
Can Tesla enjoy from not paying tax for their profit for few years like what Vietnam government applied years ago to investors?
Can we assure Tesla that there will be no more minimum salary incrwment which increase their labour cost. Can our labour laws not over protect the labour until they tend to use strike (happened to Proton before) to threthen the employers?
What will Malaysia government do to encourage Malaysian buy EV, such as build more charging stations and not let current charging station providers freedom to charge the ev users at sky high cost?
How about infrastruture supports? Flood is a nightmare for veyone whenever there ia heavy rain.
Can our new goverment maintain the policy and agreement if we change our government again?
Think of yourself!
not funny yo……..
Elon Musk for Malaysia Prime Minister
If people actually push Elon Musk for Malaysia PM the left liberal PH voters would be running for dear life.
It’s worth a try but ASEAN is not really a priority list for any car maker when you can focus on USA, EU, china and India.
I doubt we’ll see a Tesla Giga factory here but maybe there’s room for just the battery manufacturing? Do we have the raw materials for it?
Amazing, it seems that the Malaysian here in the comment section are not keen in having foreign companies to invest in Malaysia. Instead of commenting positive look to attract investment, most of them painted a very negative views of Malaysia.
And yet they will complain when such investments go to our neighrbours. Real funny what Msians wants, either want fdi or not they still will complain. Perhaps that is the reason why they are not coming here. Buang masa saja.
So true.
Indeed. And what they do here is only condemning others.
Open basikal lajak factory better! If there’s road kill, just ask Abu Bakar Katar to mete 6 years jail with no bail! Environmental friendly! No need electricity!
Invest in basikal lajak better! More environmental friendly! Ask Abu Bakar Katar if you don’t believe!
Foolish Sobi did not realise that in January 2022 Elon Musk had already confirmed with the Indonesian Government to invest USD 9 Billion in Indonesia to start a battery factory for electric cars. The fool also did not know that Indonesia has the world’s largest nickel deposits which is an important component for manufacturing the batteries. Also Indonesia has an abundant supply of labour. The fool continues to make himself a laughing stock on the world stage.
This Azmin katak only interested to bring in investors but don’t want to improve the policies. If the media notice, gomen only report approved investment…never ask realised investment. Most of the time, only 1/3 approved investments took off. Why? because gomen only want to show the approved numbers…feel good factor ma..when it comes to realise investment…lots of hanky panky going on especially state gomen, land owners (usually UMNO owned), license, utilities n infra…semua cronies want to make money.
Elon, Plssssssss come:
1) your investment might be swallowed by the robbers of Malaysia and yet u will be protected fairly by the SC, SPRM and the Rule of Law in Malaysia.
2) you might have to learn to speak Malay language as official language which might bring you networh to greater heights.
3) Your brand Tesla sounds like Testis and therefore might be made halalised with another sacred name in order for the malay woman to sit in. Huge market for you here.
4) Convicted VIP individual can still walk free and can just obtain cash from the Rakyat without asking as they see Rakyat is Cash. We have a unique formula to equate the Cash = King = Rakyat. Hence u can learn a thing or two from us to propel your Tesla and SpaceX business model to unprecendented level.
5) if you ever face any legal issues in Malaysia, just learn these few Malay words… Aku Tak Tahu, Aku pinjam akaun kepada adik, I tak tahu apa adik buat, lawyer saya kena Covid, tak boleh hadir, lepas tu I kena Covid Jugak, lepas tu Lawyer saya kena lagi. We are a very understanding lot.
So pls come.. U will never regret it.