The American Malaysian Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) has voiced its opposition to a stricter form of Movement Control Order (MCO), such as when the movement restriction or MCO 1.0 was first implemented nationwide in March last year. In a statement, AMCHAM Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Siobhan Das said such an approach does not take into account the lessons learnt and infrastructure put in place since last year, and would have an immediate negative impact on the already hard-hit local economy.

The National Security Council (NSC) will deliberate tomorrow, 21 May 2021, on whether to implement “total lockdown” in the face of rising COVID-19 cases and deaths in the country. The Health Ministry had reportedly proposed a full MCO akin to the ones in March and May of last year where only essential services were allowed to operate. The debate on whether to implement the “total lockdown” has been hotly discussed by Malaysians.

AMCHAM was invited as a panelist at the webinar titled "Governance in SMEs: A Key Strategic Business Partner in the Supply Chain" organized by the Malaysian Institute of Corporate Governance this morning. Malaysia's SMEs are the backbone of the country's economy and they are now playing an important role in the challenging business ecosystem. This webinar talked about the importance of Governance practices in SMEs to enable them to be a key strategic business partner in the supply chain.

AMCHAM will be having a Corporate Citizenship Committee Meeting on the 24th of May, 2021.

This meeting serves as the main platform through which members in the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) space gather to share and update each other on CSR related news and to roll out AMCHAM's CSR agenda for the year.

AMCHAM strongly recommends its members to participate in the CCC meetings, especially the CSR leads, Managers or Head of the CSR departments to stay updated to what's happening in the area.

For more info, please contact Elaine at elaine@amcham.com.my or Kevin at kevin@amcham.com.my.

The U.S. Commercial Service, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s export promotion arm, and its strategic partner USA Healthcare Alliance (USAHA) invite you to join a Virtual Med-Tech Trade Forum with Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand. The forum will focus on Medical Devices and Health IT and will take a deep dive into the best prospects for increasing the sales of U.S. health technologies in these fast-growing markets.

AMCHAM is also recruiting members for a Healthcare and Life Sciences Committee. Should you be interested to join the committee, please email Elaine Wong at elaine@amcham.com.my.

HSBC Malaysia recently scooped up a total of eight awards as part of The Asset Triple A Treasury, Trade, SSC (Sustainable Supply Chain) and Risk Management Awards 2021 including Best Renminbi (RMB) Bank in Malaysia for the fourth year in a row, Best in Treasury and Working Capital – MNCs/LLCs and Best Service Provider, Cash Management in Malaysia for the second year in a row.

There are approximately 1.1 billion millennials in Asia. In Malaysia, there are 9.5 million young workers. Typically characterized as flexible, adaptable, and tech-savvy, millennials offer much to the workforce, and older generations indeed have a lot to learn from the young. More companies, like 3M, are therefore pairing their senior leaders with younger mentors in this concept called reverse mentoring.

Gamuda Bhd has proposed to the government for the four highway concessions under its stable to be placed into a trust company, in an exercise it describes as a capital market solution to toll compensation woes. In return for putting the highways into a trust, sources say the company has proposed that there would not be any more toll rate hikes, the government need not fork out any money, and the risks will be entirely with the investors of the trust company.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how most business-to-business (B2B) companies think about selling. More than a year of working from home showed that Zoom meetings and remote demonstrations work just fine most of the time. Many customers, it turns out, actually prefer the virtual approach. A recent global Bain & Company survey, conducted with Dynata, found that 92% of B2B buyers prefer virtual sales interactions, up 17 percentage points from our survey in May 2020.