Trade and industry ministry assures no total lockdown if Covid cases spike

The international trade and industry ministry has assured that there will be no total lockdown of the economic and industrial sectors if Covid-19 cases in the country were to increase significantly.

Minister Mohamed Azmin Ali said the previous closure of the economic sectors had had a huge impact on the economy, especially on the people, causing 826,000 people to lose their jobs in the first three months of the total lockdown in 2020.

“When a person loses his job it involves one family and one family may involve four or five persons… and if the (total) lockdown were to continue it would leave about five million Malaysians without any income.

“We can’t do it anymore (total lockdown)… yes, we need to manage this pandemic effectively, we will do our best in health matters but economic health is also important.

“And we will now do it in a balanced way if there is a sudden spike,” he told reporters after attending a Chinese New Year dinner hosted by the Batu Pahat Chinese Chamber of Commerce last night.

Azmin said his ministry would take a targeted approach by closing only the industries affected with the focus on getting employees vaccinated.

He said that was why the Covid-19 Public-Private Partnership (Pikas) Industrial Immunisation Programme was implemented as the ministry did not want industries to close.

“If the industries were to close, the country’s economy would continue to contract. Through Pikas, we have managed to vaccinate almost two million people,” he said.

He said the initiatives were taken as the workers in the industrial and manufacturing sectors were at higher risk than those in other sectors, which could still embrace the work from home option.