KUALA LUMPUR (May 29): The American Malaysian Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) has urged the government to maintain economic viability by ensuring all local manufacturing sectors and related services remain open.

Chief executive officer Siobhan Das said work-related COVID-19 testing is catching asymptomatic cases early, providing a level of curtailment of transmission on-site or back in the community.

“Any suggestion of a lockdown will end this and drive transmission even further into the community where it is harder to identify and contain.

“We decry the attribution of the spike to the manufacturing sector, which is to be expected, due to the aggressive testing taken on by the manufacturing sector, in place of any widespread community testing,” she said in a statement today.

Das also said Malaysia holds an integral role in many global value chains, a successful position based on many decades of growth and investments.

“We reinforce the Ministry of International Trade and Industry’s effort to maintain economic viability by ensuring all local manufacturing sectors and related services remain open while being completely mindful of the lives at stake and the sacrifices being made on the medical frontline.

"We fully support all our local suppliers that in turn provide AmCham member companies the ability to use Malaysia as a base of operations,” she added.

It is an economic imperative for Malaysia to maintain these positions, Das noted, as the cascading impact of the pandemic reaches deep into and across Malaysia’s economy.