KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian Green Technology and Climate Change Corporation (MGTC) is currently developing a strategic framework for the development and planning of Electric Vehicle (EV) infrastructure across Malaysia, said Deputy International Trade and Industry Minister Liew Chin Tong.

He said the government is also examining the existing procedures for approving the EV charging system to reduce the time in processing the installation approval.

“Malaysia Automotive, Robotics and IoT Institute (MARii) and the Department of Standards Malaysia are also cooperating in ensuring that the EV technology adopted and developed in the country is uniform, safe and is of quality.

“In efforts to encourage the use of EV and the addition of charging points nationwide, several policy decisions have been determined or implemented including offering tax incentive as announced in Budget 2022,” he said during an oral question-and-answer session in Dewan Rakyat today.

He was replying to a question from Jimmy Puah Wee Tse (PH-Tebrau) on the policies taken by the International Trade and Industry Ministry (MITI) to encourage the use of EVs as well as the addition of charging points forEVs across Malaysia.

Liew also explained that under Budget 2022, the government’s incentive covers full exemption on import duty, excise duty and road tax for locally assembled EVs or imported as completely built-up, as well as full exemption for sales tax for EVs assembled locally and tax relief for individuals for subscription of facilities or installation of EV charging systems.

“Additional incentives were also proposed under Budget 2023 and, at the same time, there are proposals to increase the number of EVs including hybrid as official vehicles for departments and positions is being fine-tuned by the Finance Ministry (MoF). Besides that, the land public transport vehicles are also encouraged to change to vehicles that use electric,” he said.

Liew also said that up to end-2022, there were 902 charging units nationwide, while existing EVs in the country including hybrid amounted to 21,659 units.

“The effects from these initiatives can be seen in the significant increase the demand for EVs. The demand for EV (full battery category) jumped to over 3,400 units last year compared with an average of 300 units annually in the previous years,” he said.

Liew stressed that the implementation of these initiatives and new initiatives in the future is expected to further increase the usage of and demand for EVs as well as attract investors to expand the charging points across Malaysia to realise the nation’s target of achieving carbon-neutral status by 2050 as outlined under the 12th Malaysia Plan. – Bernama

Source: NST