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KUALA LUMPUR (June 16): The National Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Malaysia (NCCIM) has urged the government to consider extending financial relief and income support schemes for businesses — including small and medium enterprises (SMEs), micro businesses and the self-employed — to help tide them over during the extended lockdown.

This is in consideration of the economic sectors and social sectors that are expected to remain closed during Phase Two of the National Recovery Plan that spans from July until August, according to Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin's announcement yesterday.

In a statement, NCCCIM president Tan Sri Ter Leong Yap suggested that the government continues to allow enhanced targeted repayment assistance including automatic moratorium for customers adversely impacted by the pandemic, to extend the wage subsidy programme by another three to six months, and to offer one-off aid of between RM500 and RM700 to 17,000 tourist drivers, 40,000 taxi drivers, 15,000 school and tour bus drivers, and 62,000 e-hailing drivers.

He also called on the government to offer a Prihatin special grant (GKP) of RM1,500 to nearly one million SMEs, to provide government guaranteed debt to support their business viability, to extend the Human Resource Development Fund (HRDF) levy exemption to end-Dec 2021 — from its targeted end-date in June this year — and to provide 25% discounts to all companies with foreign worker permits that will expire between June and December 2021, to help ease their operating cash flow.

Above all, NCCIM said the National Recovery Plan (NRP), which outlines four phases of the Covid-19 exit framework from the current full MCO (FMCO) to the safe reopening of the economy, must be well executed to ensure a smooth transition and return to normalcy.

This means there must be standard operating procedures (SOPs) that are planned in detail and coordinated well to minimise undue disruptions to households, individuals and businesses, it said.

So the relevant ministries and agencies must fully commit and coordinate among themselves to come to an agreement when formulating the SOPs, to ensure the consistency and uniformity of enforcement at the federal, state and local authority levels.

"Given that we have had more than a year experience to manage this pandemic, inadequate preparation, delay and uncalled for confusion are deemed highly unacceptable as these add unnecessary burden on the households, individuals and businesses, which are already stressed out and still struggling to stay afloat during the pandemic," Ter said.

"The SOP must be made available at least three to four days before the date of implementation so as to provide certainty and assurance so that businesses can plan ahead," he added.

"While we reckon that the staged phases of reopening the economic and social sectors will be guided by three thresholds based on science and data — the level of new infections, the capacity of ICU beds and the proportion of vaccinations — it must not be cast in stone and allow some pragmatism and flexibility in the adjustment of timeline for the economic and social sectors to reopen, taking into account the circumstances and variations of the thresholds set," he added.

He also said the government needs to provide more clarity and transparency on the definition of the thresholds set.

Source: https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/nccim-urges-govt-extend-more-financial-relief-income-support-businesses-amid-extended