PETALING JAYA: A business group has called for the government to allow fully-vaccinated business travellers to move in and out of the country without quarantine.
William Ng, chairman of the Small and Medium Enterprises Association of Malaysia (Samenta), said the government should introduce a phased-in approach towards the quarantine-free business travel scheme.
“The vaccinated travel lane should also be speeded up to more markets, and with its capacity increased significantly.
“Without free movement, our hope for a trade-based recovery will remain subdued, especially since our SMEs are competing with regional competitors in global supply chains”, he said in a statement today.
The association also called for the government to immediately halt the increase in electricity rates which it said added “unnecessary cost pressure” to small businesses at a time when Tenaga Nasional Berhad achieved a record 9.6% revenue growth in 2021.
The government should also consider re-introducing electricity subsidies to commercial and industrial users, Ng said.
He also called for wage increases to be left to the market, and for wages to be tied to productivity and output.
“A forced increment at this fragile stage of our economy is sending a mixed signal to businesses, especially SMEs, that any effort at recovery would be to dampen cost pressure on consumers, rather than saving our SMEs and to catch up on lost growth.”
He stressed that the transition to market-led financing should be speeded up.
“While Bank Negara has been pro-active in supporting SMEs, we need the government to step in to take on more risks to allow more businesses to obtain financing through various sources.
“Our traditional reliance on collateral, rather than revenue or cash flow, is hampering growth at a time when SMEs are ready to grow but have exhausted their cash flow and disposed of their assets to weather the pandemic.”
Source: https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2022/02/20/smes-call-for-quarantine-free-business-travel-scheme/