UMW Toyota Motor (UMWT) has announced that there are no planned price increase for CKD locally assembled Toyota models “at this time”. UMWT’s CKD line-up consists of the Toyota Yaris, Vios, Rush, Hilux, Fortuner, Innova and Hiace.
“Earlier in the year, the finance ministry gave assurance that if any CKD model was affected by increased prices as a result of the transparent methodology of reporting the open market value (OMV), the increase would be fully absorbed/exempted by the finance ministry during 2020,” the company said in a statement.
“Factors such as exchange rates and tax revisions can affect prices, but as far as possible, the company has always tried to maintain price stability by absorbing the increases as much as we can,” said UMWT president Ravindran K.
This statement is a rather obvious response to Honda Malaysia’s announcement on February 21, which saw prices for the locally assembled Jazz, City and CR-V rise by 5.3% to 9.25%.
Honda said then that the price hikes were caused by a review of customised incentives for its CKD models, and that it was not related to the OMV/excise duty valuation change issue that surfaced this year.