Pandemic Causes Malaysia's Automotive Business To Collapse, Car Sales Fall By 88 Percent And Production Drop By 94 Percent

Malaysia's automotive industry plummets (Themalaysianreverse)

JAKARTA - Due to the lockdown policy from the Malaysian government to anticipate the spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19, the automotive industry in the neighboring country was affected and experienced a drastic decline.

In terms of car sales in Malaysia, it decreased by 88 percent last July compared to the same period in 2020, which saw 58,878 units collapse to 7,086 units in 2021.

Not only that, car production also experienced a very drastic decline, namely 94 percent, to only 2,775 units in July 2021, according to data from the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) through Just Auto.

Despite experiencing a fairly severe decline, when compared to June, the results from July proved to have grown by around 269 percent. Whereas in June alone it collapsed to 1,921 units.

The decline occurred after the Malaysian government decided to implement a lockdown policy to break the spread of the Delta variant of Covid-19. This policy forced large dealers in Malaysia to close.

Meanwhile, dealers located in Sarawak and Sabah were still allowed to operate in June and last July while still implementing the applicable health protocols.

Reportedly in August, the Malaysian government plans to relax the policy, including in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. This is a breath of fresh air for dealers in the area so that they can operate again.

Despite a sharp decline, if you look at sales that occurred for seven months in 2021, car sales have increased by 10 percent to 256 units. Meanwhile, in 2020 in the same period, car sales were only around 232 thousand units.