Allow retailers to reopen to ensure their survival, urges MRCA

KUALA LUMPUR: Local retailers are in dire straits with many able to sustainably operate only until October amid the ongoing lockdown to combat the Covid-19 infections.

Malaysia Retail Chain Association (MRCA), which represents 450 members and retailers, said businesses were hit by the double whammy of tight cash flow due to zero sales throughout the lockdown period and fixed costs expenses such as salaries, rent and utilities.

A prolonged blanket lockdown would negatively affect retailers and result in ballooning debt, retrenchment, pay cuts and inability to meet monthly obligations such as rent, salary and debt, warned MRCA.

“The government should instead introduce a targeted lockdown to ensure retailers’ business sustainability,” said MRCA president Shirley Tay during a virtual conference on the #WhiteFlag Initiative by MRCA and Direct Selling Association of Malaysia (DSAM) yesterday.

Under the initiative, both MRCA

and DSAM aim to raise RM500,000 to purchase essential food supplies for the needy.

Tay said malls or shops unaffected from the Enhance Movement Control Order should be allowed to resume operation but with stricter standard operating procedure.

“We disagree with the blanket lockdown. Rather, the implementation should be targeted,” she said, adding that infection rate at malls have been low at only 0.8 per cent.

Tay said in Selangor’s major sub-districts and several Kuala Lumpur localities where Covid19 cases were high, the government should speed up the vaccination programme.

Retail Group Malaysia (RGM), in a survey involving 100 respondents from MRCA members, said most retailers recorded a significant reduction in sales in the first quarter.

It also highlighted that more than 50,000 employees had been laid off, adding that 50 per cent of the survey respondents had taken a pay cut.

“Fifty-five per cent of the respondents have downsized operations, with 21 per cent having closed at least six outlets or branches,” said RGM in its Malaysia Retail Industry Report.

MRCA’s members currently operate about 30,000 outlets nationwide with a staff strength of 300,000 employees.

Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah previously said residents in Klang Valley were likely to receive at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine by early next month.