A DOZEN or so hotels, several high-profile eateries, a video-store chain and at least two international brands have announced that they are closing down as we cross the 100-day mark of movement controls in Malaysia, and surpass 10 million Covid-19 cases and 500,000 fatalities worldwide.

Our infection and death rates are under enviable control, but the government’s two programmes to mitigate the economic impact of the pandemic – Prihatin and the first half of the six-step Penjana – seem inadequate to stop businesses from shuttering.

Perhaps, it’s a good time to relook some aspects of Penjana. The bulk of its allocation goes to a few key areas – direct and indirect cash aid for businesses and citizens, training for displaced workers and strengthening the online economy. The last is great for small and medium enterprises in urban and semi-urban areas, which already have the requisite e-commerce infrastructure and ecosystem (delivery trucks, riders and drivers, etc), but it won’t do much for rural mom-and-pop shops or business-to-business services, which have also been dealt a huge blow by the virus crisis.

Businesses need to do more than just “digitalise”. A holistic review of their strategies is necessary, as their cost per sq ft has generally increased and productive workspace, halved. A restaurant implementing social distancing and other health measures has to reduce the number of seats for dine-in, and needs at least one dedicated employee to record customers’ temperature and contact details. Some service-based industries, like barbershops and nail salons, can do with more aid as they are not able to benefit from going online and have been warned not to hike prices.

While promoting e-commerce and e-wallets is great to stimulate the economy and allows the government to better gauge income and taxation, limiting their use to a handful of major players could lead to monopolies, making it hard for smaller ones to enter an already extremely competitive marketplace. The government loses nothing by liberalising this module and allowing businesses to choose smaller partners, who may be willing to invest in areas yet to be covered, thus broadening the intended reach and extending the benefits.

The plan also appears to be self-contradictory. It promotes riders and drivers in the gig economy, and at the same time, private car ownership and public transport. Why not have affordable ownership schemes for gig drivers that can be bundled with safety and security requirements, such as the compulsory testing and licensing that saw opposition under the previous administration?

On the surface, there seems to be a mismatch between what we’re training people for and what we should focus on. For instance, the upskilling programme targeted at 200,000 unemployed youth hones in on finance, information and communications technology, entrepreneurship and marketing. Marketing and finance are sectors experiencing large-scale layoffs and restructuring. The ICT training, meanwhile, should emphasise marketable skills, especially those to do with communications and e-commerce, instead of, say, multimedia design.

The move to identify 30,000 gig workers as the target audience is commendable for the medium term, but it should be expanded to include value-intensive work, such as outsourced, in-demand digital services like artificial intelligence/machine learning development and data analytics, and even arts-related jobs, like commissioned paintings, scriptwriting and proofreading. These have the added value of bringing in foreign currency.

The stimulus package earmarks RM400 million, or a paltry 1.1% of its total RM35 billion allocation, for agriculture and local food production, which runs counter to what the rest of the world is doing – increasing agricultural output to meet local demand and reduce foreign dependence. We should use this opportunity to boost domestic production and the related technologies, slash the profiteering and middleman arrangements that drive up prices, and build stronger working relationships with countries more experienced in these areas, like India and Thailand, while bridging the trade deficit with some of these nations. High-end crops, including durian and organic vegetables, are viable, sustainable replacements for electronic components, car parts and other hard-hit exports.

Talent and food are two things Malaysia has a history of being good at, and maybe, it’s time to focus on them once more. – July 1, 2020.

* Emmanuel Joseph firmly believes that Klang is the best place on Earth, and that motivated people can do far more good than any leader with motive.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.