At least 6 months before economy recovers, says minister

Updated 4 years ago · Published on 30 Mar 2020 8:11AM · 2 Comments

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Economy) Mustapa Mohamed says it will take Malaysia at least six months to recover after the pandemic ends. – The Malaysian Insight file pic, March 30, 2020.

THE government expects the country’s economy to need at least six months to recover after the Covid-19 crisis ends, said Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Economy) Mustapa Mohamed.

He said the estimated recovery period was reasonable with the support of the right strategies.

“We pray for that, so surely we need to find another strategy to recover,” he said after appearing on the Ruang Bicara talk show on Bernama TV last night.

He added that various sectors, including tourism, hospitality, retail and investment, were adversely affected by the pandemic.

“The tourism sector, for example, visitors would not be coming into Malaysia immediately, so we have to intensify our promotional activities.”

He said several Covid-19 affected countries expected their between nine months and a year at the earliest to rebuild their respective economies.

Meanwhile, he said the government was ready to discuss with some of the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as micro-entrepreneurs who said they were left out of the people-centric economic stimulus package.

“SMEs are big in numbers and it is beyond the government’s ability. But the government is always open to them as they represent more than 60% in the workforce.”

Currently, there are around 907,000 local entrepreneurs in the country. – Bernama, March 30, 2020.

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Comments

  • Why should a SME continue paying employees for not working? Nobody will do that, SMEs will just temporary closed down to cut losses. Why should they take the govt RM600 and pay balance of RM 1,400 to an employee for not working. Maybe max one month they can bite the bullet , not after that. If MCO prolong beyond 15Apr, I think there will be massive lay off. Govt put the wrong priority by channelling directly the fund to employees and force the employers to maintain them, pay them fully and no assurance govt will give the RM600 per head. In the end, employee each getting full salary and RM 1,600 additional money. Employees are getting more money than before while employers have to suffer the lost yet must pay the employees. Govt leaders are purely stupid. The economy will collapse within months. Unemployment will shot up drastically within months, govt strategy will doom failed bcos how long u can pay the employees RM600 every month. U will have 100% support for long long extended MCO bcos makiah is getting more money than working. Can everyone imagine how stupid is the govt? Mahathir was smart, save the corporations and maintain jobs during currency crisis in 1997.

    Posted 4 years ago by James Wong · Reply

  • Six months ? With you bunch, we doomed

    Posted 4 years ago by Chai Hin Goh · Reply