No mass Christmas, New Year’s event; self-tests required even for private parties
Bracing for the threat of the more transmissible Covid-19 Omicron variant, large-scale New Year’s Eve and Christmas celebrations will not be allowed, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin announced. However, smaller private parties were permitted, provided that all attendees perform a Covid-19 self-test before attending. With rising concern over the Omicron variant, Khairy also announced additional measures to address the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. These include making booster doses by February a requirement to retain full vaccination status for those who received the Sinovac vaccine as well as recipients of other vaccines aged 60 years’ old and above. The announcements were preceded today by the Health Ministry’s confirmation of the country’s second case of the Omicron variant, involving an eight-year-old child travelling with her family from Lagos, Nigeria. (Malay Mail)
Land VTL open to all Malaysian, Singaporean citizens from Dec 20
Due to increased public demand for travel, all Malaysian and Singaporean citizens will be able to cross the border via the Vaccinated Travel Lane for land crossings (VTL-Land) effective Dec 20. The International Trade and Industry Ministry said that Malaysian permanent resident status holders can continue to enter Malaysia via VTL-Land. “Travellers are still required to be fully vaccinated and for unvaccinated children below the age of 12, they must be accompanied by fully vaccinated parents or guardians. The VTL-Land will still be limited to only bus transportation,” the ministry said. Singapore-bound designated VTL-Land bus services will use Larkin Sentral Bus Terminal (Larkin Sentral) as the boarding and disembarkation point in Malaysia, whereas Queen Street Terminal (QST) and Woodlands Temporary Bus Interchange (WTBI) as the boarding and disembarkation points in Singapore. Prior to purchasing any tickets, travellers into Malaysia using the VTL-Land are required to register at https://mysafetravel.gov.my whereas travellers from Malaysia to Singapore, are required to register at https://go.gov.sg/vtl-portal. (The Star)
Banks should step-up financing and other funding options to improve homeownership
End-financing is still a major issue in homeownership, according to the Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association Malaysia (Rehda). According to the Rehda Property Industry Survey 1H21, 88% of respondents reported end-financing issues. The top three factors were ineligibility due to buyer income, a lower financing margin, and insufficient financial documentation. Rehda hopes that banks will expand their step-up financing and other alternative funding options to improve Malaysian homeownership. “Most financial institutions are still very risk-averse and too stringent in their assessment criteria to the detriment of prospective house buyers, looking for a home,” Rehda president Datuk Soam Heng Choon said. He hopes the government will extend the Home Ownership Campaign (HOC), which ends this month, to help with property sales and marketing. This would allow prospective home buyers to purchase a home as their jobs and income improved over time. (NST Online)
Rehda to introduce digital marketing certification programme next year
The research arm of the Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association (Rehda) Malaysia — Rehda Institute — will look into a digital marketing transformation initiative (DMTI) which is a digital marketing certification programme planned for 2022 with several partners to assist property developers and the whole property marketing and sales ecosystem towards digitalisation. This comes after 49% of the respondents said the impact of digital marketing spending and digitalisation were found to be impactful, according to a recent Rehda survey. Its deputy president Datuk NK Tong said the findings came about after one of the current issues faced in marketing and sales of properties in Malaysia was highlighted whereby there is slow and lack of digital technology adoption from property developers in Malaysia, particularly the medium sized to smaller developers. (The Edge)
Interbank ATM withdrawal fee to be reimposed Feb 1, 2022
After 20 months of waiver, banks and financial institutions will reimpose the RM1 Malaysian Electronic Payment System (MEPS) Interbank ATM withdrawal fee effective Feb 1, 2022. Although Bank Negara Malaysia has yet to make an official announcement about the reinstatement, banks have started putting up the announcement on their websites and social media platforms. Maybank, Hong Leong, Public Bank, Bank Islam, CIMB are among the banks who have confirmed the announcement. On April 6, 2020, in light of the Movement Control Order (MCO) restrictions due to Covid-19, the government decided that banks would waive the RM1 fee for withdrawal transactions carried out at different banks. The waiver was supposed to be reinstated in August when the country progressively transitioned into the National Recovery Plan (NRP) but no official announcement has been made since. (NST Online)
PLUS Highway tolls to transition to RFID from Jan 15
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology will be available for toll payments by private Class 1 vehicles along the entire stretch of the North-South Expressway, beginning January 15, 2022. The Works Ministry said this was in preparation for the eventual phasing out of Touch ‘n Go and SmartTAG usage. “There will be a lane for RFID along the tolled highway on the west coast to help ease traffic congestion, that is in line with rapid technology developments,” said the ministry. Both Touch ‘n Go and SmartTAG payment methods will be phased out in stages, as RFID lanes are implemented according to the Intelligent Transport System — ITS Blue Print for a Multi Lane Free Flow (MLFF). RFID, in tandem with MLFF, offers road users a more seamless, contactless experience when paying toll fees. (Malay Mail)
