The Pandemic Management Special Committee has agreed to give relaxation to a number of sectors. This includes areas undergoing Phase One of the National Recovery Plan (NRP). They will be allowed to operate beginning Friday, 17 September, provided that the vaccination conditions are met.

The vaccination status of volunteers who are part of the COVID-19 Phase Three clinical trial should be updated in the MySejahtera application to avoid any problems in the future. The volunteers were informed that they would be receiving physical vaccination cards only upon the completion of the two doses of either vaccines or placebos under the extended crossover and booster study.

A total of 39,685,414 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Malaysia as of Thursday (Sept 16). A total of people 21,783,871 (or 92.7% of the adult population) have received their first dose while 17,973,545 (or 76.8% of the adult population) had both doses.

The ASEAN Economic Ministers (AEM) and dialogue partners (DPs) have renewed their regional economic diplomacy to intensify global efforts to ensure vibrant growth and resilient recovery against the COVID-19 pandemic. The collective effort is aimed at expediting the rejuvenation of the economy from the pandemic, with all AEMs and DPs reiterating their continuous global cooperation to ensure equitable access, safe and effective distribution of vaccines.

Wong & Partners, a member firm of Baker McKenzie International, has won the Malaysia Firm of the Year at the Euromoney Women in Business Law Awards Asia 2021. This is the fifth time the Firm has taken home this coveted award, after winning it for four consecutive years in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Malaysia's economic conditions are expected to improve as the newly-formed government announces more positive and stable policy in the near future, said investment firm Franklin Templeton. Franklin Templeton Asian equity strategies portfolio manager Eric Mok said besides that, the firm expects risk of further disruption to be lower following the partial reopening of the non-essential sectors of the economy.

Nine months since the first COVID-19 mass vaccination program began, only 1.4 percent of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose. The problem is not just of procurement, but also of distribution and the lack of strong cold-chain infrastructure in some parts of the world. Solving these problems is the only way to get from where we are now to the post-COVID-19 era.