Use zoning system to reopen businesses, Putrajaya urged

An economist says manufacturing and agriculture, where people do not gather together, should be allowed to continue.

PETALING JAYA: The government has been urged to use a zoning system in which business activities can be resumed until a vaccine is developed for the Covid-19 disease.

Most production and economic activities in “green zones” could be gradually allowed to resume, subject to health controls, said economist Carmelo Ferlito.

However another economist, Shankaran Nambiar, said Malaysia should learn from Singapore, which had backtracked after realising that “their anxiety to prioritise the economy was a miscalculation”.

Ferlito said it was inevitable that Malaysia would allow businesses to resume operations.

The national shutdown to contain the spread of Covid-19 had crippled 90% of small enterprises, which employed millions and contribute to nearly 40% of the gross domestic product.

A recent government survey had shown that nearly 50% of self-employed people had lost their jobs.

He said a zoning system could be put in place in which business activities could resume in green zones – areas without Covid-19 cases – with greater reliance on compulsory screening and testing of workers, and sanitisation of the workplace.

Nambiar, of the Malaysian Institute for Economic Research, said it is essential for private enterprises to be kept afloat.

However he called for a hierarchy of business activities of those that can be spared from the restrictions of the movement control order and others which must be banned.

He said any activity that brought people together in groups should not be allowed. “I would think that restaurants, cinema halls, places of worship and shopping complexes would fall within this category.”

Agricultural and manufacturing activities could resume as these did not require close proximity of people.

“We have to be careful, the Singapore model was held to be a model worthy of replication earlier on, but now it seems that their anxiety to prioritise the economy was a miscalculation.”

Now, he said, the island republic has backtracked.

As business activity is resumed, high levels of hygiene and cleanliness would be required, especially in the food and beverage industry, said Azrul Mohd Khalib, chief executive of the Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy.

“They must adapt and quickly. We need to learn from other countries which have been successful without a lockdown, such as South Korea and Taiwan,” he said. - FMT