Toyota Motor and Honda Motor have resumed production at their Malaysia plants after almost a week. The Japanese automakers had halted production in the country to comply with a 14-day lockdown imposed by the government to control the surge of COVID-19 cases. The Malaysian government had ordered all non-essential industries to shut down.
The automobile industry and the Japan External Trade Organization urged Malaysian government to reconsider auto sector under essential services, post this the government allowed the companies to resume production at their plants. Toyota halted production at two assembly plants last week on Jan 14, while Honda had idled work at two factories.
Perodua, Malaysia’s national automaker and other top auto makers had also shut production to comply with the government orders. Reports suggest that Malaysia’s production capacity is set to improve to almost half a million units in 2021. Malaysia is the third largest auto producing country in Southeast Asia after Indonesia and Thailand.