KUALA LUMPUR | A total of 543 employees of furniture maker Poh Huat Resources Holdings Bhd’s subsidiary have tested positive for Covid-19 during a screening exercise.
In a statement to Bursa Malaysia on Tuesday, it said foreign and local employees of its main operating subsidiary Poh Huat Furniture Industries Sdn Bhd (PHFI) had on Jan 21 voluntarily underwent a full screening (PCR test).
The workers were employed at all its factories in Bukit Pasir industrial area in Muar. The screening exercise found 38.7% of the 1,400 employees or 543 workers were tested positive.
The group also temporarily suspended the Malaysia operations from Monday, Jan 25 to Feb 3, or further as advised by the Health Ministry.
However, the group’s Vietnam operations is free from Covid-19 related incident and remain in full operations.
“The temporary closure of PHFI operations is expected to result in delay for the shipment of several orders to its customers in the US. The management is currently in discussion with the affected customers for the rescheduling of the delivery dates for these orders and expects that there will not be any adverse impact to the group, ” it said.
Poh Huat said PHFI expects to be able to mitigate the delay in shipment as it has certain amount of ready inventory to meet some of these orders and if necessary, increase production with extended shifts when manufacturing resumes.
It added the group can divert some of its Malaysian orders to its Vietnamese subsidiary should the need arise.
“The company does not expect any material impact to its financial performance other than the cost incurred for the swab test, disinfection process and daily meal allowance to foreign workers, ” it said.
At midday, its share price was up two sen to RM1.60.
