The Bernama news agency reports that Malaysia’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) is still studying the strategic working paper on the direction of the country’s automotive sector before submitting it to the Cabinet in a month.
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Minister Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz said that there were still matters to be discussed and that the ministry was fine tuning the draft of the working paper.
“I have read the draft and there are still matters to be discussed. These involved not only duties but also strategies and measures concerning other incentives to turn Malaysia into a regional hub for local and foreign investors,” she told reporters.
She said that the strategic working paper contained the complete picture of the direction of the automotive sector to make Malaysia the regional hub for automotive manufacturing and production and automotive components.
On the new duties for imported cars, Rafidah said that it would be announced by the Finance Ministry in August.
Meanwhile, when asked to comment on the suggestion by Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER) executive director Prof Emeritus Mohamed Ariff Abdul Kareem that Malaysia should not wait for China to revalue its yuan before making any decision to repeg the ringgit, she said that the matter was sensitive.
Furthermore, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, has already made a statement regarding the matter and “we should hold to that statement.”
The prime minister had on various occasions said that the ringgit peg against the US dollar would remain despite the rumours in the markets and calls for a change to the ringgit’s fixed exchange rate.
The ringgit is pegged at 3.8 to the dollar.
Rafidah said that the government was currently monitoring the ringgit performance daily to find out whether or not the local unit was competitive versus other foreign currencies, especially the US dollar, euro and yen.
“For the moment, there is no indicator pointing out to the need to make any changes, and that stringent supervisions are still being carried out by the Finance Ministry, Bank Negara Malaysia and other relevant parties,” she said.
