PETALING JAYA: New vehicle sales showed positive signs of recovery as more showrooms and assembly plants started their operations in mid-August after two months of the movement control order.

       Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) reported sales of 63,489 new vehicles in October, which surged by 43% from a month earlier.

       “Companies ramped up production and deliveries of vehicles to fulfill backlog orders. It is also a full and longer month of business operations nationwide,” MAA said in a statement yesterday.

       The sales marked the second highest monthly sales this year and the second time the monthly total industry volume (TIV) exceeded the 60,000 units mark. The last time TIV exceeded 60,000 was in March this year when it recorded 64,875 units.

       During the two months of the movement control order in June and July 2021, MAA reported that new vehicle sales were only at 1,921 units and 7,086 units, respectively.

       On a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis, October car sales grew 10.04% from 57,695 in 2020.

       This was despite total vehicle production being down 11.6% y-o-y to 65,410 units in October from 58,631 units a year earlier.

       Cumulatively, for the first 10 months of 2021, vehicle sales fell 4.81% to 382,379 from 401,714 a year ago.

       For the cumulative 10 months, total vehicle production also slipped 1.36% to 369,406 from 374,494 a year earlier.

       Moving forward, the agency expects that new vehicle sales will remain robust and maintain at the above 60,000 units level as recorded in October.

       This would be supported by companies’ year-end promotional campaigns to spur sales, MAA said.

       New vehicle sales are also expected to be supported by the extension of the sales and service tax (SST) exemption for new vehicles to June 30, 2022, which was announced by the government at Budget 2022 last month.

       The percentage of SST exemption remains unchanged from what was announced before, with 100% exemption for locally-assembled (CKD) cars and 50% for fully-imported (CBU) cars.

       This extension means that the government is forgoing sales tax on two years worth of CKD vehicle sales.

       The government had also announced various incentives to ramp up electric vehicles including exemption from import duties, excise duties and sales tax.