SINGAPORE: Malaysia's Johor state has announced that from January 1 next year, the state's rest days will be on Fridays and Saturdays instead of Saturdays and Sundays.
The Singapore Business Federation (SBF), whose members have business ventures and investments across the Causeway and in the Iskandar Malaysia region, said the decision by the Johor state comes at a bad time.
Speaking to Channel NewsAsia, SBF's CEO Ho Meng Kit said the move will make business more inefficient because a Singapore company doing business in Johor would only have four working days (Mondays to Thursdays).
Mr Ho explained: "So if you are going to transfer goods and services between the HQ and the subsidiary, you could only do it on four days. It will be inefficient. I guess, over time, the companies on both sides will have to make adjustments."
Both Mr Ho and the vice-president of the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, Kurt Wee, noted that the other states in Western Malaysia and in particular Kuala Lumpur have their weekends for the workforce on Saturdays and Sundays.
So, dealing with subsidiaries in Johor, KL and Penang all at the same time would be difficult.
Mr Wee added: "The shortcoming is that even if the Johor workforce, economy, banks (are operational) on Sundays, the rest of the surrounding economic centres - Singapore, Kuala Lumpur - are not working that day. So...it's not going to be as effective a workday."