KUALA LUMPUR: BMW Malayasia has announced that it will be exporting vehicles to the Philippines and Vietnam by 2018. This was announced at the launch of the locally assembled X1, and X4 unveil. It is also looking to increase its annual production capacity of its facility at the Kulim High Tech Park, Malaysia to 11,000 units in order to support this new program.
“We are pleased to be able to raise our competency here to assemble and export these premium vehicles to emerging markets in the region and grow our capabilities in the ASEAN region,” said BMW Group Malaysia Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Han Sang Yun.
Being members of the ASEAN Economic Community, the vehicles will be subject to import duty exemptions covered by the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement, thereby reducing prices in their respective markets to boost sales volumes. These for-export BMW units will include the 3 Series, 5 Series and 7 Series variants.
The German automaker is current looking to reduce prices for the said models in Malaysia as part of an incentive package by the government for Energy Efficient Vehicles (EEV) or models that meet a defined set of specifications regarding emissions and fuel consumption. Earlier this year, prices of the BMW 1 Series and BMW 3 Series went down by 8-percent after meeting EEV specifications.
The Philippines currently does not have any incentive for energy efficient or alternative fuel vehicles.
