Residents seen wearing masks while walking on a street in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Photo: XINHUA/VNA) Kuala Lumpur (VNA) – Malaysia’s National RecoveryCouncil (NRC) has agreed to fully open the country’s borders in March tosupport the country’s economic recovery.
NRC Chairman Muhyiddin Yassin told a press conference on February8 that it agreed to the full opening of the borders as early as March 1 without theneed for mandatory quarantine.
However, he said, those entering Malaysia would have toundergo COVID-19 tests before and right after arriving into the country asrecommended by the Health Ministry.
Theopening of borders needed to be done accordingly and based on currentrisk assessment, Muhyiddin said. He also expressed his confidence that thecountry's public health system can control the number of daily infections basedon the past experiences.
In the context of the wave of Omicron variant that is strongly affectingMalaysia, causing the number of new COVID-19 infections daily to increasesharply to 5-digit levels, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry(MITI) reaffirmed that there will be no total lockdown of the economic andindustrial sectors again.
Senior Minister Mohamed Azmin Ali said the previousclosure of the economic sectors had a huge impact on the economy, especially onthe people, causing 826,000 to lose their jobs in the first three months of 2020when the government imposed a movement control order.
MITI will take a targeted approach by closing only theindustries affected and focusing on getting the employees vaccinated, he said.
Currently,Malaysia’s borders are only opened to foreigners on a case-to-case basis suchas emergencies, official business and other related matters.
The country alsohas had a quarantine-free vaccinated travel lane (VTL) arrangement with Singaporesince November last year and a Langkawi international travel bubble.
Malaysia logged13,944 new COVID-19 cases on February 8, raising the total number of infectionsto over 2.9 million, including 32,043 deaths. Almost 98 percent of adults in Malaysia have been fully vaccinated, while more than 53 percent of adults have received booster jabs./.
