Among the leading aerospace players already in Malaysia are Airbus, Safran Landing Systems, Spirit Aerosystem and Singapore Aerospace Systems.
International Trade and Industry (Miti) Minister Mustapa Mohamed said Malaysia has positioned itself as a critical supplier of aircraft structural components.
“We have CTRM, SME Aerospace and UMW Aerospace, which have become suppliers for global OEMs such as Airbus, Boeing and Rolls Royce,” he said referring to original equipment manufacturers.
These OEM products include fan casings, fan cowls, carbon brakes, leading edge panels, sharkelets, nacelle beams, and automatic flight control and electronic flight displays.
“The export of these aerospace products were valued at RM5.53 billion in 2016, a 32.6% increase from the RM4.17 billion recorded in 2015,” he said.
Mustapa said Miti this year was targeting to increase the exports of OEM products by around 20%, despite the tight economic environment.
Currently, the aerospace industry provides 21,000 jobs, 8,800 in the manufacturing sector, he told the media at the Malaysia Aerospace Summit 2017 (MyAero’17) here today.
Mustapa said the Malaysian aerospace industry had attracted investments of RM1.6 billion in 2016 compared with RM4 billion the previous year.
Malaysia recorded investments of RM8.7 billion for the sector between 2011 and 2015.
He said the slight dip in investments in 2016 was considered normal as Malaysia was still in the infancy stage in the industry.
“What’s more important is the long-term potential that the aerospace industry has to offer.”