SHAH ALAM, March 26 — Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali today revealed that a luxury carmaker known for its ‘precision engineering’ will be setting up base in the country soon.

During a question and answer session here at a gathering with civil servants, the senior minister in charge of international trade and industry (Miti) said that he is however not at liberty to reveal the identity of the manufacturer, adding that the firm has agreed to operate here.

"I can say, there is one car manufacturing company. This one is one which produces expensive cars, not the cheap ones.

"I cannot announce yet, although they have already agreed. This is the first plant outside that particular country. This is about precision engineering. Meaning, making cars which are among the most expensive in the world. So the factory will be here in Malaysia.

"So we are moving towards that direction. Of course, they will ask us whether we have that capacity. So we need to develop our human capital, we need to develop talent, there needs to be skills. Otherwise we will lose to our neighbours,” he said.

Mohamed Azmin said that Malaysia needs to move away from the labour-intensive model, to one that uses human capital which adopts high technology.

He was responding to a question from an officer who wanted to know more about the state of the nation’s economy, after several business titans chose to operate from Indonesia, and asked if they moved away due to political instability, and what is the government going to do to address the issue.