The Malaysian Insight

TOURISM and retail operators have urged Putrajaya to control the spike in Covid-19 cases as soon as possible instead of enforcing a second round of the movement-control order (MCO).

They told The Malaysian Insight that it was difficult for them to restart their business after the MCO was lifted in June and a second MCO will hit them hard.

The daily new Covid-19 cases in Malaysia hit the 200-mark on October 1, after maintaining at a low level for the past four months. Yesterday, 432 new cases were reported, the highest number of infections in a single day, which led to fears of another lockdown.

With the recent spike, the domestic tourism sector has started to suffer from many cancellations. Crowds have also dropped in many shopping malls in Kuala Lumpur after Covid-19 cases were reported there.

Malaysian Chinese Tourism Association (MCTA) president Albert Tan told The Malaysian Insight that domestic tourism companies have been receiving requests for cancellation or rescheduling their tours in the past week.

“The number of confirmed cases increased every day, which worried customers. They have called to cancel and reschedule. I hope that the situation will stabilise within two weeks,” Tan said.

Currently, most industry players are looking forward to the customary peak season at year-end.

They hope the government can control the virus’ spread and prevent tourism spots from becoming Covid-19 red zones.

“It is now the beginning of October and I hope that the pandemic is controlled soon because from November until end December, there will be a large number of travellers.”

Innovating tour packages

He said some customers cannot opt for cancellation due to the short time period but they can rearrange their tours to green zones where there are no confirmed cases.

Tan said most in the industry strongly encourage customers to reschedule or change travel locations.

Players have done much to promote cross-state tourism in the past few months, such as by working with local tourism departments to develop new attractions, cuisines and fresh travel packages.

“Although the pandemic situation has worsened, we will continue moving forward.

“The industry has taken a big blow but everyone must find ways to survive and keep the business going. We cannot stop halfway,” Tan said.

Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) president Soh Thian Lai said: “It is important that the current infections and clusters continue to be managed effectively and the chain of infections broken quickly.”

Soh said business and trade must continue to operate, including supporting services, such as transport and logistics, to ensure there is no disruption to the movement of goods, which is critical at this juncture to businesses and economies at large.

“Businesses will not be able to withstand the impact of another MCO, which will cause irreversible destruction to our economy, especially the manufacturing sector.”

Soh also expressed his approval towards the government’s prompt implementation of the Prihatin economic stimulus package.

He said it was instrumental in the initial business recovery process and assisted SMEs and micro-businesses.

The stimulus package, including the automatic bank loan repayment moratorium, helped businesses overcome cash-flow constraints and meet fixed capital cost.

“However, businesses, especially SMEs, are still very much cash-strapped and any further assistance to help meet their operational costs is welcome.”

Soh said it is encouraging that financial institutions have continued to facilitate the requests and applications for the extended moratorium on loan repayments.

FMM appealed to the government and the financial institutions to continue providing moratorium support to struggling industries for another three months, until December.

Smaller crowds in malls

Malaysia Retail Chain Association (MRCA) president Liew Bin said the spike in Covid-19 cases has seen a large drop of customers in many shopping malls.

He said this was evident in the past week when the cases started to spike. Even shopping malls which did not report infections were affected.

“People are afraid, so they are staying away,” Liew said.

“Businesses were beginning to recover, but suddenly there was a second wave. People would rather not go out.”

Earlier, there were confirmed cases in malls, including at Sunway Pyramid Shopping Centre, The Linc KL Plaza, Suria KLCC, Nu Sentral Shopping Plaza and 1Utama.

Liew, however, is not expecting another lockdown given the government’s previous efforts to support affected companies.

SME Association of Malaysia president Michael Kang said the government should control the areas where the pandemic has erupted, and not lock down the city.

“Isolating thousands of affected people is better than isolating all 32 million citizens.”

On the current cash flow of SMEs, he said the industry hopes banks will be more lenient.

While banks hope to recover their loans, they should also worry about the risk that the SMEs may not be able to sustain themselves, he said. – October 6, 2020.