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FMM: PEMERKASA Plus timely but falls short of business sector’s expectations

FMM In The News:  BERNAMA, KUALA LUMPUR, Tuesday, June 1, 2021 - The RM40 billion PEMERKASA Plus  aid package is timely but falls short of the business sectors expectations, Federation of Malaysian.  

In a statement today, he said the industry, in particular,  welcomed the extension  of the Wage Subsidy Programme, three-month automatic loan moratorium  or 50 per cent reduction of loan instalment repayment as well as additional RM2 billion allocated for the Targeted  Relief and Recovery Facilities by Bank Negara Malaysia forsmall and medium enterprises (SMEs).  

He said the indust
ry also lauded the initiative to increase the vaccination rate to150,000  per day by June 2021 and hoped that the government would accelerate the mass immunisation programme through a parallel  vaccination implementation by private hospitals and clinics and the vaccination for the economic sectors  throughthe Public Private Partnership (PPP) Immunisation Initiativto achieve faster  herd immunity.  

“Unfo
rtunately, the assistance and initiatives announced have fallen short of the business sectors expectations and requests on direct assistance to industries thatare impacted by the Full Movement Control Order (FMCO), especially those that are unable to operate during this period, he said.  

According
to him, the FMCO is more stringent  and has  a far greater impact than the previous MCOs as businesses have not recovered from the earlier impact of the previous lockdowns and their nances reserves, especially for SMEs, have been depleted  over the last one year.  

Soh said
 in particular,  the industry called  on the government to urgently include  several assistance/initiatives including the extension  of automatic loan moratoriumto all businesses impacted by the lockdown  regardless of size,  and expansion of the Temporary Measures for Reducing the Impact of COVID-19 Act to provide for relief for manufacturing and other manufacturing-related services such as trading or distributorship and logistics which are currently not included.  

(We
also seek a) waiver of Tenaga Nasional Bhds maximum demand charge for May 2021 given that industries have already  been on a reduced workforce of 60 per cent from May 25, 2021, and the period of lockdown just announced which could possibly be from June to July 2021,” he said.  

He said
 FMM also called for the government to permit the movement of all containerised and sealed import and export cargo  to and from ports and airports as well as manufacturing warehouses. 

Failure to allow companies to clear import shipments from ports and export shipments from factory  warehouses to meet shipment deadlines will lead to port and airport congestion similar to MCO 1.0, he said.  

Soh
added that the government must also allow industries to undertake maintenance of plants during this period with 20 per cent workforce capacity instead of only 10 per cent, which “is not practical” to carry out warm idle activities for 24/7 operation companies.  

--
BERNAMA

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