MARCH 1 ― I co-own a seafood restaurant in Johor Baru with my business partner. Since Covid-19 hit our shores in 2020, business has been badly hit. The various stages of the movement control order (MCO) to curtail the spread of the virus had a devastating effect on the food and beverage industry.
It was one thing to have dining-in banned at different stages of the MCO. Making things worse was the closed borders which choked our businesses further. Prior to the pandemic, many seafood restaurants in JB were reliant on tourists, including those from Singapore.
Thankfully, the various financial aid given by the government between 2020 and last year helped to tide us over. Many more businesses would have gone under if not for assistance like wage subsidies and grants for small businesses like mine.
Things are looking up now, although business is still a far cry from the heydays, pre-pandemic. The VTL with Singapore and eased business restrictions have offered some relief.
For now, businesses like mine and many others, not just in Johor but nationwide, wait with bated breath for the reopening of international borders, which have been closed for two years now.
I was very excited when the National Recovery Council chairman Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin proposed to the government that the borders be reopened in March this year. To us, that was a bold and forward-looking proposition.
But imagine our disappointments when the government rejected the proposal. Worse still, businesses are still in the dark over when borders will finally reopen. The business community detests uncertainties as we often need to plan our resources ahead.
I see no reason why the government is dragging its feet on border reopening. Two years is a long enough wait, considering tourism is one of the key contributors to our GDP before the coronavirus wreaked havoc on the global economy.
The argument that keeping our borders close will help insulate us from imported Covid-19 infections also does not hold water. Firstly, Covid-19, including the Delta and Omicron variants are already in the country. The question of insulating the country from imported cases does not arise.
If international travellers into the country are subjected to stringent SOPs, such as pre-departure and post-arrival testings, the risk of them transmitting the virus to locals can be mitigated.
Furthermore, the high vaccination rate among Malaysians, thanks to the aggressive National Covid-19 Immunisation Plan rollout by the Muhyiddin administration, has helped to substantially diminish the risks posed by the virus at the macro level. Even for booster shots, some 62 per cent of the adult population in Malaysia have been innoculated.
So, given the above scenarios, why is the government dragging its feet on border reopening? There is certainly more for Malaysia to gain if international travellers are allowed to come in more freely, subject to them adhering Covid-19 protocols.
It's not just the tourism industry which will gain from the reopening of borders. The whole supply chain, like transportation, food and beverage and retail will benefit. Other sectors like education and MICE (meetings, incentives, conferencing and exhibitions) will also flourish, bringing about a multiplier economic effect to the country, which craves for good days when the cash registers were ringing in much more frequently.
This is why I feel that the government should revisit the proposal by Muhyiddin to reopen our international borders earlier instead of dilly-dallying about it at the expense of the business community, which has suffered enough from lockdowns and Covid-19 restrictions over the past two years.
I believe that as the PM who was in the thick of things at the height of the pandemic, including introducing critical aid and stimulus packages, Muhyiddin would be more able to feel the pulse of the business community. And right now, the business community has only one message: open the borders now!
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
