In recent years, Ford has had a fairly quiet presence in the local automotive scene, but expansion may be on the cards, with news that the American automaker is set to invest in the country, according to a Bernama report.
Over the weekend, it was reported that Malaysia had secured a total of RM63.02 bilion in proposed investments in the United States. In announcing this, prime minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said that out of the total, RM8.33 billion were from the trade and investment mission to the US that was organised 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 from Ford, although it was not revealed in what areas the company would invest, nor how much it would put into the country. It is also not known if the investment plans include vehicle manufacturing in the country, and to what extent electrification will figure in the scheme of things.
At present, Ford conducts assembly operations in Thailand for models in the Ranger pick-up family as well as the Everest SUV, but has yet to define plans or a shift towards electrification in the region.
However, things look like they are changing. Earlier this year, the brand announced that it was investing in a nickel processing plant in Indonesia, joining PT Vale Indonesia and Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt in a USD4.5 billion (RM21 billion) venture to set up the plant in Southeast Sulawesi. As for Malaysia, it remains to be seen what scope and breadth the reported investment will take.
Other investments secured by the trade mission include that from Abbott Laboratories, Boeing, Amazon Web Services and Amsted Rail. The remaining investments that were secured were from the various one-on-one meetings held by Anwar while at the APEC forum, and include those from Google, Microsoft and TikTok.
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