KUCHING, Apr 9: The Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) is appealing to the federal government to allow essential product manufacturers to operate at 100 per cent and non-essential manufacturers at 50 per cent during the extended period of movement control order (MCO).
FMM president Tan Sri Soh Thian Lai in a statement said allowing the industry to operate was critical to prevent the industry from collapsing following one month closure of most businesses.
He explained that factories could not afford to remain closed while businesses needed to pay salaries to workers and fixed capital expenditure.
Soh noted that the MCO had also restricted both import and export activities with an estimated loss of RM4.7 billion following feedback from its recent survey.
“Since March 21, FMM has been monitoring manufacturers’ feedback through its survey on the impact of the MCO. As of April 2, the survey received 1,120 responses.
“(About) 56 per cent of the respondents estimated that they will face losses of RM500,000 and above. Out of this number, more than half or 55.4 per cent estimated losses of RM1 million to RM5 million,” Soh said in a statement today issued by FMM from Kuala Lumpur.
He believed the small and medium-sized industries were at risk of suffering the financial loss of between RM1 million and RM5 million.
Soh explained that the potential losses could be arising from the payment of salaries to workers, loss of sales, stock inventory and possible contractual penalties from suppliers and customers.
Soh gathered that majority of the players in the manufacturing sector can tolerate, at most, four weeks of non-operation.
Hence, Soh pointed out that the federal government must respond quickly to the request by FMM to allow manufacturers to operate before the situation is further aggravated with compounding losses of businesses. —DayakDaily
