The Government of Malaysia imposed a second Movement Control Order (“
MCO 2.0”) throughout Malaysia from 13 January 2021 to 26 January 2021 in order to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 and break the chain of infections, whilst at the same time allowing the continuance of certain economic activities to mitigate the financial losses that would arise from a reduction of economic activities.
Unlike the first Movement Control Order (“
MCO”) the restrictions under MCO 2.0 announced by Senior Minister (Finance and Economics) (also the Minister of International Trade and Industry), Dato’ Seri Mohd Azmin Ali, in a
Media Release on 12 January 2021 (“
Media Release”) apply only to the states and territories that are subject to the MCO, namely Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, Labuan, Johor, Penang, Sabah and Melaka. For the same period, the states of Pahang, Perak, Negeri Sembilan, Kedah, Terengganu and Kelantan have been placed under the less stringent conditional movement control order whilst Perlis and Sarawak have been placed under the recovery phase of the movement control order. This Alert deals only with MCO 2.0.
As in the first MCO,
essential economic services registered with the relevant Ministry / Agency are allowed to continue operations. In contrast to the first MCO, there is now an expanded list of broadly five essential economic services, namely manufacturing, construction, services, trade distribution and plantation and commodities (“
Essential Services List”) which in turn consists of 36 specific activities
. The list of these activities is available
here.
The salient points of
MCO 2.0 General SOP issued on 12 January 2021 (and correct as at 12.00 noon on 15 January 2021) that affect economic activities can be summarised as follows (with additions from the Media Release):