Reacting to health minister Khairy Jamaluddin’s recent statement that he was thinking of a national testing policy, Malaysian International Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MICCI) executive director Shaun Cheah said he welcomed policies to address the pandemic, but added that these should not lead to any undue increase in costs for businesses.

“Businesses have been struggling for two years against the effects of the pandemic as well as the US-China trade war,” he told FMT.

Cheah added that manufacturers were already forking out large sums of money to test their employees every two weeks.

“If a company has 1,000 employees, even at RM19.90 per self-test kit, it will have to spend almost RM40,000 per month on testing.”

Khairy spoke about the proposed new policy at a press conference last Wednesday. He said people refusing to be vaccinated could be subjected to a regime of testing.

Cheah said there should be no need to periodically test employees who had been vaccinated unless they had been in close contact with positive cases.

He said the government should bear the cost of testing unvaccinated employees or provide a subsidy if it decided to make the testing regime mandatory.

Meanwhile, Ameer Ali Mydin, managing director of the Mydin chain of hypermarkets, said the right of businesses to bar unvaccinated persons from their premises must be respected regardless of any testing policy.

He said the restricting of privileges for the unvaccinated, like entering shopping malls and travelling, could encourage more people to get vaccinated.

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