Banking, O&G, aviaition to reap benefits from national immunisation programme- economist

KUALA LUMPUR: The banking, oil and gas and aviation sectors should reap significant benefits from the National Covid-19 immunisation programme launched by the government on Tuesday, said an economist.

Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd economist Adam Mohamed Rahim said the commencement of the immunisation programme was likely to revive business confidence in the country and consequently propel economic growth with more movement restrictions expected to be relaxed.

“As travel may pick up post-vaccination, provided that the vaccines are effective, airlines will ramp up its flight capacities which will then lead to higher jet fuel consumption that bodes well for the O&G sector,” he told Bernama.

On the other hand, Adam said the glove sector could face some backlash as investors might perceive that rubber gloves were not so much needed compared to the early days of the pandemic.

“The thriving glove manufacturers may be impacted and experience a tapering of demand as sentiment across the public sphere shows that they are sceptical on demand, moving forward post-vaccination.

“However demand could still be sustained later on amid improved awareness on hygiene practice in many parts of the world,” said Adam.

On the notion that logistics companies were also to benefit from the NIP spillover effect, Adam was of the opinion that there would be some vaccine logistics hiccups.

“Vaccines need to be stored in a temperature-regulated environment and not many warehouse providers have this capability, therefore there could be a hiccup in distributing and storing vaccines,” said Adam.

Adam also suggests that logistics companies should expand their business offerings to cater to the distribution and storing of vaccines as it will be in high demand when the vaccines roll out.

Malaysia is set to roll out on February 26 the biggest vaccination exercise it has ever undertaken in an effort to immunise the people against Covid-19.

The first shipment of vaccine is scheduled to be delivered five days earlier, on February 21.

Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin will take the lead in getting vaccinated on February 26, along with the frontliners, under the programme that is scheduled to stretch to February next year.

He disclosed details of the exercise when he launched a handbook on Tuesday on the immunisation programme that has applied the whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches.

According to reports, for Malaysia’s Pfizer vaccine order, the first batch of one million doses (for 500,000 people, at two doses each) is slated to arrive by end-February, with a further 1.7 million doses in the second quarter (2Q21), 5.8 million doses in 3Q21, and 4.3 million doses in 4Q21.

Source: NST