Nolah, not in Malaysia. At least not yet from the government. Already announced RM260 billion stimulus. Not so soon lah. How many of you think that you want to buy a car right after the Movement Control Order (MCO)? Well, considering the fact that I have two cars and I barely drove one every 5 days for 5 minutes, I certainly am not thinking of buying a new car. That’s the issue though.
When many people are like me and they think like me, then the car sales will stagnate. When the car showrooms do not sell as fast as they did previously, they will order fewer cars from the factory. With less orders, the factory would have to hire fewer people or even let go off some surplus head counts. This is the same for the car sales person. Their job may not be secure too. what could the government do?
Article in edition.cnn.com The report says that in a normal year by the month of April, China would have sold more than 6 million new cars. The number for 2020 is only at 3.7 million. Only 1.43 million cars were sold in March 2020 and this was a 43% decline versus the year before. To help the car industry to get back on its feet, Beijing has announced last month that it would extend subsidies and tax breaks for new energy vehicles, such as electric or plug-in hybrid cars, for another two years.
This is not all. Local governments are also doing their part too. At least a dozen cities or provinces have encouraged people to buy cars, mainly by offering cash subsidies of as much as $1,400 (RM6,067) per vehicle. There are expectations that order for cars will return when schools reopen. Ferrying children to school is said to be a major reason why the people of China buy cars. Please do read the very comprehensive report here in Article in edition.cnn.com
What do you think? Should the Malaysian government also think of ways to help the car sales? Maybe we could / should but I think that’s well after the MCO is fully lifted. Definitely not now. The focus should be on ensuring as few people as possible lose their jobs. Making sure as low as possible the number of SMEs who will have to close their business as this will also help to lessen the number of people who would lose their job.
As for the incentive to buy cars, I think it should still be skewed towards those who need it more. As for the car owners who need to continue to show people that they are doing well, please do not stop changing cars every year okay. Thanks for helping the economy as well as giving a chance to those who could not afford a new luxury car but still wanted to buy a luxury car the chance to buy that car from the secondhand market. Happy zooming (i meant driving and not that zoom video okay…)
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