Immediate transition to Phase 2 of NRP necessary - FMM

 

The Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) has called for the immediate transition into Phase 2 of the National Recovery Plan (NRP) claiming that vaccination rates should be prioritised over the number of cases.

In a statement, they requested that the government conduct a review on three indicators needed to move from Phase 1 to Phase 2 of the NRP to prevent further damage to businesses and the economy.

“The manufacturing sector is already severely impacted by business closures of non-essential sectors and the reduced capacity operations of the essential sectors.

“We have proposed that the government review the three thresholds of the NRP for a faster transition to Phase 2 and the opening up of more sectors to minimise the damage to businesses and the economy,” said FMM president Soh Thian Lai today.

The thresholds needed to be achieved in order to move to Phase 2 of the NRP are - average daily Covid-19 cases of below 4,000; “moderate” intensive care units (ICUs) capacity and having 10 percent of the population fully vaccinated.

Phase 2 will see the slight easing of restrictions on business activity. Businesses that are allowed to operate can do so with 80 percent of their workforce. However, social sectors will still remain closed in the next phase.

Originally, the government estimated that the country would enter Phase 2 in July but this has been delayed as targets have not been met.

FMM claimed that waiting for the cases to drop to below 4,000 and the uncertainty of achieving that milestone would effectively kill the manufacturing industry.

They further asserted that an increase in vaccination rates the key to the reopening of economic sectors rather than a decline in the number of Covid cases, citing a recent Bloomberg study on worldwide Covid resilience ranking for which Malaysia ranked 51 out of 53 global economies surveyed.

“It is evident from the study that the speed of vaccination is the key to economies moving back to normalisation which will then enable economies to relax restrictions and dismantle border curbs and minimise the need for lockdowns.

“The government should not focus on reducing cases and instead work on driving large-scale vaccination as this is the only way to return to pre-pandemic times,” said Soh.

The Bloomberg study ranked countries on vaccination progress and lockdown severity as well as their economy’s openness to the world by introducing two elements of flight capacity and vaccinated travel routes.

Soh claimed that Malaysia’s low ranking was attributed to lagging vaccination rollouts, ongoing lockdowns and closed borders.

“While there continue to be threats of the resurgence of cases especially due to the new and more virulent variants of the virus, it is evident that a fast rollout of vaccinations has proven to be pivotal in the reopening of economies,” he added.

Ceiling price

In their statement, FMM also listed nine considerations to be made by the government:

i. Implement state or area-specific lockdowns targeted at the highest number of infections to break the infectivity chain. Areas with lower or controlled cases should be allowed to operate without any distinction between essential and non-essential sectors.

ii. Accelerate and expedite the National Immunisation Program (NIP) including the immunisation of economic sectors via public-private partnership Covid-19 Industry Immunisation Programme including facilitating mobile clinics.

iii. Allow a parallel vaccination programme by private hospitals and clinics and for the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) to accept WHO-approved vaccines without imposing additional requirements at the national level.

iv. If the delivery of vaccine was a constraint, the current requirement of 10 percent to be fully vaccinated should be reviewed to 10 percent with at least one vaccine dose and setting a minimum threshold within each private-sector company so that companies can be allowed to operate and/or increase capacity.

v. Companies that opt for private immunisation drives should be allowed to claim the cost from their Human Resource Development levy and be eligible for tax deduction where applicable. A ceiling price on private immunisation jabs depending on the cost of the vaccine should also be supported.

vi. The government should increase intensive care unit (ICU) capacity, rather than wait for current ICU beds usage to reduce to “moderate” levels.

vii. While waiting for the immunisation to be completed, mass testing of the general public should be continued including of foreign workers, especially the undocumented ones.

viii. A comprehensive strategy for vaccination of undocumented foreign workers.

ix. A comprehensive strategy and action plan to address the likely shift of the Covid-19 pandemic to an endemic.

FMM previously raised concerns about the indefinite extension of Phase 1 NRP due to its impact on businesses, especially the manufacturing sector. - Mkini