"Malaysia is keen to learn from China's experience in driving innovation for rapid economic growth, especially in strategic areas such as digital economy, green technology, biotechnology, and space technology," said Chang Lih Kang, Malaysia's Science, Technology and Innovation Minister in a recent interview with GDToday at the 2023 China Greater Bay Area-ASEAN Economic Cooperation (Qianhai) Forum in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong province.
Chang highlighted the potential cooperation of electric vehicles (EVs) with Chinese manufacturers. He said that China has a mature market and advanced technology while Malaysia just started the initiative to promote EV, so the country hopes to attract more EV manufacturers and EV-related vendors to invest in Malaysia and help boost the ecosystem."
Sales of new energy vehicles, including electric cars and plug-in hybrids, are estimated to reach as many as 750 thousand units in July in China, up 34 percent year-on-year, according to the China Passenger Car Association.
Chang indicated that Malaysia has recently signed a cooperative agreement with a Chinese carmaker, bringing in 32 billion Malaysian Ringgit worth of investment in Automotive Hi-Tech Valley in Tanjung Malim in a 10-year period, which is aimed to be Malaysia's main auto-making hub focusing on new energy vehicles.
China-Malaysia automotive collaboration has been promoted in recent years. In his recent speech, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim stated that the continued partnership and close collaboration between Malaysian national carmaker Proton and China's Geely are strategically important.
Proton's partnership with Geely began in 2017 when Geely acquired 49.9 percent of the company to drive the transformation of the national automaker, Proton said in a statement, adding that since then, quality improvements, investment in new products, an infusion of talent and growth in the number of outlets, have seen the company's fortunes rise.
"The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) has a complete and robust business ecosystem. The technological companies or startups are doing very well in the GBA. I hope that we can attract more such kind of technology-related investments through my participation in this forum. We would also like to have more people-to-people exchanges with the GBA in the future," said Chang.
Reporter丨Nina
Poster designer丨Mia
Editor丨Olivia, Jasmine, Nan, James
