International Trade and Industry Minister Azmin Ali responded to the allegations yesterday saying the decision to allow factories to operate was made collectively in the National Security Council (NSC) meeting.

He added that the ministry’s role was only to coordinate so that authorised parties could operate in compliance with the standard operating procedures.

Azmin also showed data on placards from the National Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre (CPRC) and the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) that indicated only 8.8 percent of new Covid-19 cases were recorded in the manufacturing sector out of 408,134 cases nationwide between June 1 and July 23.