Extend the loan moratorium by 6 months with the 2021 budget, says Mata

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Association Travel Agency (Mata) has recommended that the government extend the loan moratorium period for at least another six months in the 2021 Budget, which will be presented next week.

Its president, Mohd Khalid Harun, said the move would give industry players the opportunity to restructure their company’s finances following the implementation of the motion control order (MCO), which to date is still being implemented. applying, as some states have been placed under improved OLS conditions.

“For example, travel agencies will have the opportunity to focus on marketing tourist destinations, while tour bus operators will be able to continue paying fees to prevent financial institutions from repossessing their vehicles.

“Keep in mind that as long as the country’s borders are not opened, there will be no movement of tourists to or from Malaysia and this will affect the income of those in the tourism sector,” he said in a statement today.

Khalid said that industry players cannot rely solely on domestic tourism because the sector contributes less than 20% of total tourism sector revenue.

In addition, he also proposed that the salary subsidy be continued so that tour operators do not have to fire their workers. This would at the same time help more than 3.6 million workers in the sector to stop being unemployed.

He also hoped that the government could restructure Penjana’s RM1 billion tourism sector financing scheme by allowing existing government agencies to manage the funds.

In addition to granting exemption from the license fee until 2022, he said the government should also provide attractive tax relief packages, including exemption from income tax, to licensed travel companies and further encourage investment in the tourism industry.

“The government should take our call seriously because the tourism sector had contributed a significant amount of revenue as it ranked third, having contributed 15.9% to the Malaysian economy after the manufacturing and products sectors. basic, in 2019, “he said.