KUCHING, July 19 — More business operations are now allowed to open following the updated standard operating procedures (SOP) under Phase 2 of the National Recovery Plan (NRP).

Based on the SOP issued by the National Security Council (MKN) on Saturday, the additional retail operations allowed for reopening include those related to photography, floristry, as well as those selling watches, musical instruments, accessories and cosmetics.

Other licensed retail activities that are permitted are the selling of handbags, shoes, stockings, baby necessities, religious items and bicycles (repairs and sales).

In a post on Sarawak Disaster Information’s Facebook page yesterday, it mentioned that the updated SOP (Economy Sector) could be downloaded via Ministry of Local Government and Housing’s website.

On July 13, MKN issued the SOP for Sarawak under Phase 2 of the NRP, which initially allowed businesses such as carwash operations, fashion apparel and footwear stores, self-service laundries, as well as hair salons and barbershops (only for haircut service) to reopen, effective July 14.

Other operations allowed to reopen were shops offering mobile services including retail (sales of items), repairs and bill payments, shops selling sports equipment, healthcare stores, optical stores as well as pet stores.

Furniture stores, hardware stores as well as household, kitchenware and home appliances stores were also given the green light to operate again.

Other services permitted to resume operations included stores providing healthcare items and equipment; stores selling safety equipment; stores selling electronics, electrical and computer/ICT products; stores selling cleaning, grass-cutting, pest control and agriculture-related products including those for nurseries; stores selling fishing equipment; premises selling automotive accessories including sales, maintenance and repairs, as well as packaging and printing.

The latest SOP also stated that the operating hours for the economic and industrial sectors had been revised to run from 6am to 10pm.

Those retail operations providing essential items would continue to open including convenience stores, supermarkets, hypermarkets, department stores as well as various markets including wholesale markets, weekend markets and night markets.

Shopping malls were allowed to open only sections selling essential goods.

Initially, all eateries such as restaurants, food courts, food stalls, food trucks, roadside hawkers, mobile hawkers, hawker centres and food kiosks could resume their dine-in service, but the decision was deferred to July 16.

This was after the Ministry of Local Government and Housing issued new SOP for dine-in at eateries, following Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC)’s announcement about this service being put on hold due to the detection of 16 more Delta variant cases in Kuching.

The new SOP for dine-in include limiting such service to be provided by eateries whose operators and workers had been vaccinated with at least the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. — Borneo Post Online