by HARIZAH KAMEL / pic credit: ANNUAL REPORT

CENTRAL Global Bhd will continue to keep a tight rein on cashflows to ensure business sustainability following the government’s decision to extend the Enhanced Movement Control Order (EMCO) until Aug 1 in certain areas of Kuala Muda, Kedah, where the group’s factory is located.

The industrial masking tapes and label stocks producer has closed its factory since July 5, 2021, given its location in Kuala Muda is currently under EMCO.

The group, which is also a general building contractor, employs almost entirely locals. Several of the 170 employees have served the company for more than four decades.

“We have always been cautious about the outlook for this year given the uncertainties of further Covid-19 outbreaks, and while we will continue to tap into opportunities arising from a more fragmented regional competition landscape and the sporadic local supply-chain disruption, we are also mindful of the risks,” Central Global executive chairman Datuk Faisal Zelman noted in a statement last Friday.

He said the group has backlog orders to fulfil that will keep the factory busy until year-end, but operations have been affected due to the EMCO.

Faisal said the group is consistently in discussion with the authorities despite the lockdown measures and managed to obtain permission to operate on a partial basis, being categorised as an essential industry (packaging) during the MCO 1.0.

“We hope that the government will consider applying similar regulations for the current EMCO as well,” he said.