In recent years, Ford has had a fairly quiet presence on the local automotive scene, but expansion may be on the cards, with news that the American automaker is ready to invest in the country, according to a Bernama reports.
Over the weekend, Malaysia was reported to have secured a total of RM63.02 billion in proposed investments in the United States. Announcing this, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said of the total, RM8.33 billion came from the trade and investment mission to the United States that was organized before the start of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum held in San Francisco last week.
Among the investments secured by the trade mission was that of Ford, although it was not revealed in which areas the company would invest, nor how much it would invest in the country. It is also unknown whether the investment plans include vehicle manufacturing in the country and to what extent electrification will figure in the picture.
Ford currently runs assembly operations in Thailand for models of the Ranger truck family, as well as the Everest SUV, but has yet to outline plans or a shift toward electrification in the region.
However, things seem to be changing. Earlier this year, the brand announced it was investing in a nickel processing plant in Indonesia, joining PT Vale Indonesia and Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt in a US$4.5 billion (RM21 billion) venture to set up the plant in Southeast Sulawesi. As for Malaysia, it remains to be seen how far and wide the reported investment will be.
Other investments secured by the trade mission include those from Abbott Laboratories, Boeing, Amazon Web Services and Amsted Rail. The remaining investments that were secured came from the various one-on-one meetings held by Anwar during the APEC forum, and include those from Google, Microsoft and TikTok.
Are you looking to sell your car? Sell it with myTukar.