Malaysia is the country with the most developed automotive industry among the ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). (Compared with Thailand, another ASEAN country with a developed automotive industry, Malaysia has a relatively developed independent automotive industry, while Thailand is basically engaged in the assembly or production of foreign brands.) As Malaysia is an "old-fashioned" British colony, in terms of the market access management and technical regulations of automotive products, it has always followed and borrowed from the old model of the former United Kingdom. (Since the United Kingdom is an official member of the European Union, with the unification of the access management and technical regulations of automotive products in the EU, the original model and regulatory system of the UK have long been transformed into the unified model and regulatory system of the EU in the UK itself. The old model has been widely used or has a profound influence in the former overseas colonies of the UK.) It was only in the last two years that Malaysia began to carry out substantial and in-depth reforms of its original automotive product access management system and technical regulation system, comprehensively adopted the ECE automotive technical regulation system, and adopted the vehicle type approval system in line with international common practices in the access management system of automotive products.

The chairman of the Malaysian National Type Approval Committee is the director of the Road Transport Department of the Ministry of Transport of Malaysia, and the secretariat is located in the Automotive Engineering Division of the Road Transport Department. In addition to the Ministry of Transport of Malaysia and its subordinate Road Transport Department, the composition departments of this committee also include the following relevant departments:
(1) Standard and Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia, abbreviated as SIRIM. This institution is an organization in Malaysia specifically responsible for product certification (most of which are voluntary certifications, and there are also a few mandatory certifications in the fields of safety and environmental protection). Products certified by SIRIM will be pasted with the SIRIM certification label, indicating that the products meet the relevant standard requirements of Malaysia.
(2) Ministry of International Trade and Industry of Malaysia, abbreviated as MITI. This department is mainly responsible for the development of international trade and industry (including the automotive industry), including strategic planning, specific management, supervision, and relevant legislative work. The automotive industry policy of Malaysia is formulated and issued by this department.
(3) Ministry of Environment of Malaysia, which is involved in the control of automotive pollution and noise.
(4) Standards Malaysia.
(5) Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research, abbreviated as MIROS. This institute was established on January 1, 2007, and is mainly engaged in the investigation, research, and analysis of the safety of vehicle use (mainly including automobiles and motorcycles) (including road traffic accidents), providing technical support and relevant suggestions for the competent government departments to formulate relevant policies, standards, and technical regulations. At the same time, it also conducts relevant publicity and training work on vehicle safety.
(6) PUSPAKOM, a vehicle inspection institution in Malaysia, which is authorized by the Malaysian government to carry out the mandatory vehicle inspection work stipulated in the "Road Transport Act".
(7) KDRM, the Customs of Malaysia.
(8) KPDN, the Ministry of Domestic Trade of Malaysia.

Through the development in recent years, the type approval system of automotive products in Malaysia has shown the following characteristics:
(1) The power and role of the National Type Approval Committee are becoming increasingly important. Ultimately, a vehicle can only obtain type approval after being approved by this committee.
(2) When applying for vehicle type approval, an enterprise should list the technical regulations it uses or complies with in the application materials.
(3) It is completely divided and defined according to the ECE automotive technical regulations (ECE R.E.3) and the EU's whole vehicle type approval framework technical directive 2007/46/EEC, that is, vehicles are divided into M, N, O, and L categories.
(4) The development direction of the automotive type approval system in Malaysia has been clearly defined, and ECE individual regulations will be adopted in the system.

It should be noted that since Malaysia has signed the "1958 Protocol" of the United Nations WP29, for all ECE regulations within the framework of this protocol, automotive parts and systems that have obtained ECE type approval and carry the E mark are recognized by Malaysia, and are regarded as complying with Malaysia's own technical regulations and standards (MS standards), and can directly enter its market. For the whole vehicle type approvals of other countries, if their individual items meet the requirements of ECE regulations, the whole vehicle approval will also be recognized.

The Road Transport Department of the Ministry of Transport of Malaysia and the National Type Approval Committee jointly review the type approval of vehicle products, and issue type approval certificates for vehicle products that have passed the type certification. The original certificate will be handed over to the applicant, and a copy will be sent to the vehicle registration department and the vehicle information IT department of Malaysia. The model numbers and relevant information of the vehicle products that have passed the type approval will be entered into the government's computer database.

Malaysia not only comprehensively adopts the ECE automotive technical regulations and type approval system in the pre-market access management of automotive products, but also, in order to strengthen the management of automotive products after they enter the market, has established a complete recall system for automotive products with reference to international practices.