KUALA LUMPUR, June 1 — Some 95,142 companies have obtained approval to operate during this latest movement control order (MCO) as of this afternoon, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Miti) revealed today.

The Ministry said an estimated 1.2 million workers from these approved companies are expected to be working at their respective premises under the latest standard operating procedures.

This is from a total of 517,144 companies with a total workforce of 9.67 million whose records already exist within the Ministry’s Covid-19 Intelligent Management System (CIMS) 3.0.

"As of now, based on the NSC imposition of workforce capacity, it is estimated that 1.2 million workforce of the approved companies is allowed to work at premises.

"This effectively amounts to a reduction of two million workforce of the 3.2 million total workforce for the approved companies,” said Miti.

The statement also encouraged companies that fall under the approved sectors not already registered under the CIMS system to come forward and obtain approval if they wish to operate during the MCO.

It said those at the ministry have started processing applications received from companies since Monday afternoon adding approved ones must bear some necessary traits.

"All approval letters issued by Miti via CIMS 3.0 should bear the QR code. This feature is necessary to allow the authorities and the enforcement agencies to verify the authenticity of the approval letters,” said the statement.

Miti added that immediate discussions were held with the relevant Ministries following the government’s decision to hand the responsibility for industry approvals back to them, just a day before the lockdown kicked in.

"As of today, nine ministries have provided their respective approved list of economic sectors for Miti to issue the approval letters to companies registered with CIMS 3.0,” it said.

Miti added that a special operations centre specifically handling approvals through the CIMS 3.0 system has been set up, with Senior Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali, his deputy Datuk Lim Ban Hong, and other senior Miti officials all present to ensure smooth workflows.

On Sunday, Senior Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said that all existing permission letters issued by Miti previously for workers who need to travel for work under previous editions of the MCO would no longer be valid after May 31.

Ismail had said that new requests for permission to travel for work from June 1 must be directed to the respective ministries.

Then yesterday, the National Security Council announced that the responsibility was returned to Miti as the body in charge as the one-stop coordinator for businesses to get written permission to operate.