Over the weekend, news reports broke of BYD Malaysia’s stalled plans for CKD plant and the resulting backlash from social media has been clearly felt with MITI issuing a press release in response.
At first glance it would appear that MITI’s response is aimed at quelling BYD and future investor fears. However, upon further reading, there’s only one major correction to the initial report and that was concerning the price floor set by MITI. We’ll break MITI’s response into 3 sections.
On Pricing and Quotas
The initial reports indicated that locally-assembled EVs (at least from BYD) would not be allowed to sell vehicles priced BELOW RM200,000. MITI says the ACTUAL price floor set for such vehicles is RM100,000.
Besides that, MITI doesn’t quite refute the core elements of the initial report, just that they were not expressed properly.
For one, the initial report indicated that BYD would have to export 80% of its production capacity from this plant, with only 20% being allocated to local sales. MITI’s correction says the allocation is set at 10,000 units, which corresponds to 20% of BYD’s projected capacity. Does that mean BYD would have to prove 40,000 units of Malaysian assembled cars were exported in order to sell 10,000 units here or can BYD just sell 10,000 cars without exporting a single one? The mechanism for this system was not clarified. MITI’s also insisting this was not a restriction imposed on BYD but a ‘mutually agreed production framework’ so that Malaysia can become a pro-export market.
On this last point, it’s worth noting the top exporters of cars from Malaysia last year are an estimated 6,000 units from Proton (less than 4% of total production) and 2,500 from Perodua (less than 1% of total production). Make of that what you will.
On Discriminating Against New Investors
The initial report may have made it look like BYD was singled out by MITI, however MITI’s response indicates that ALL new automotive investments are being hit with these rules regardless of brand or country of origin. The exception being automotive investments that use EXISTING facilities.
On this point, you could say that MITI’s not discriminating against BYD specifically. However it doesn’t change the fact that new investors, particularly in the EV space, are being hit with rules that existing investors aren’t subjected to.
Protection of the National Ecosystem
Linked to the above point, MITI’s press release attempts to justify the new (post September 2025) policy by focusing on three elements: protecting Proton and Perodua sales, ensuring CKD operations are ‘high value-added’ rather than just semi-knock down, and to protect the 700,000 jobs within the existing vendor ecosystem.
On this point, if you were unhappy over the weekend, you’re going to still be unhappy today. MITI’s doubling down on protectionism and the only affordable options will be from P1 and P2.
Correction On Price Floor
Another significant point addressed by MITI was the price floor for fully-imported EVs. Initial reports indicate that CBU EVs will have a price floor of RM250,000 and a performance floor as well. MITI also addressed the floor price. They say it is a temporary measure but didn’t go further. So in this case, it’s hardly a refuted point. If this is construed as a U-turn from a permanent figure to a temporary one, I would argue that it doesn’t look good on MITI that we’re 4 months into 2026 and still relying on temporary figures when they had from 2022 to 2025 to figure out a number.
No New Pickup Truck Rumours
MITI also addressed rumours NOT linked to the initial reports on pick-up trucks. The rumour specifically relates to the banning of imports of new pick-up truck models. They say there has been no such announcement from MITI. That being said we’re not sure this fully addresses the topic. GMW’s Cannon pick-up trucks have been in the country since 2023 but the car hasn’t been launched yet. BYD showed the Shark PHEV pickup in November but no news of its launch has come out yet.
You can read the full statement from MITI here:
