Its group managing director Datuk Seri Mohd Khamil Jamil said without the support and assistance of the prime minister, the joint venture between DRB Hicom and Volkswagen to produce locally-assembled or completely-knocked-down (CKD) Volkswagen vehicles would not have been realised.
"The prime minister sacrificed his annual leave in 2010 to meet with the Volkswagen management in Europe to convince them to work with us.
"Had it not been for his intervention, DRB-Hicom and the national automative industry would have lost the opportunity with Volkswagen, which had initially earmarked an industrial area in Samut Prakat, Thailand for its CKD regional base," he said at a DRB-Hicom gathering with the prime minister here Thursday.
Volkswagen inked an agreement with DRB-Hicom in Singapore in March last year to produce Volkswagen cars for the local as well as Asean market.
Mohd Khamil also acknowledged Najib's support in the establishment of the International College of Automotives, Malaysia (ICAM) aimed at producing highly skilled and knowledgeable manpower for the local automotive industry.
The ICAM's campus located at the DRB-Hicom automotive complex in Pekan is currently under construction and scheduled for completion in the third quarter of this year.
He said the ICAM would reinforce Pekan's status as the national automotive hub under the East Coast Economic Region (ECER) initiative.
Meanwhile, Najib noting that Volkswagen would be injecting another RM600 million in Pekan, said the undertaking was to let the people benefit from foreign investment.
The success of the automotive industry in Pekan was a combination of DRB Hicom's efforts and the Barisan Nasional's government policy to spur greater economic change and growth in Pekan.
Najib said the government was constantly finding approaches to help the business community through various incentives to attract foreign investment into the country.
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