DRB-Hicom Says CKD Negotiations Finalising; Volkswagen Malaysia Disagrees

DRB-Hicom, which recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Volkswagen for the local assembly of vehicles, has given all Volkswagen -loving fans in Malaysia a boost, revealing that negotiations are in the final stages and that substantial price reduction and production volume are a real possibility.

“We are in the final leg of negotiation”, Group Managing Director Datuk Seri Mohd Khamil Jamil said. “We hope to conclude the details by year-end and looking for the first roll-out of Volkswagen cars by 2011”.

When asked about the pricing of the initial three—yet to be revealed—models, Khamil replied “it will be cheaper... could be substantial”, adding that DRB-Hicom could be producing more than 30,000 cars by 2015.

However, Volkswagen Malaysia's version of things appears contradictory to DRB-Hicom's. “Volkswagen would like to reiterate the content of the MOU that both parties are still in the early stage of investigating local vehicle assembly”, the company's just-released official statement said. “The joint plans envisage the production of Volkswagen models in Malaysia from 2012 onwards”.

Volkswagen Malaysia then went on to squash any hopes of the local assembly of Golf GTI, Beetle and Passat—the three most popular Volkswagen models here. “The models/variants in negotiations to be locally assembled will not be the models which are currently offered in Malaysia”, the statement further said.