Nearly eighteen months, from March 2020, businesses have had their operations disrupted and have to operate at reduced capacities which makes it hard to survive and prevent a business from collapsing.

Industry groups are therefore appealing to the government to allow all businesses, regardless of which state they are located, to be able to operate at full or increased capacity if a high percentage of their workers are fully vaccinated.

Industry players are also asking for further government stimulus and non-monetary assistance to help all affected businesses to reopen and boost their production capacity. This follows a disclosure that 580,000 businesses or nearly half of MSMEs will fold by October 2021.

MSMEs are ready and willing to impose strict SOPs and give good support to the National Immunization Program and they look forward to further relaxations.

The Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) is advocating for those sectors that are currently classified as non-essential in phase one and two of the National Recovery Plan to be allowed to resume operations.

FMM stated it should be based on the percentage of employees that have been fully vaccinated instead of continuing to restrict their operations by their NRP status.

FMM stated that the prolonged closure is killing many industries and increasing the rate of unemployment as many businesses have not been in operations for close to three months now.

-THE MALAYSIA VOICE