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Getting a License
Getting a License for your company
All the above is not yet enough. There are many special licenses for special companies. If you want to open a restaurant, you need a license to operate a Restaurant. If you want to print certain materials, you need a license to print.
These licenses or the implied things allowed and not allowed do not often make much sense. A man got a license to print a journal, but was told that it was forbidden for him to print a journal in A3 size. He was only allowed to print a journal in A4 size or smaller.
Other companies, you do not need a license.
Normally if you have a visible shop, you need a License.
Ask around: If you're in doubt and if you want to be all clean, go to the City Council and ask. Of course, if you ask, you will probably need one.
A Licence has to be renewed every year and it will cost you around RM 300 a year (for a Restaurant without Liquor License).
People are very helpful if you are willing to follow the rules and regulations. If you do not, your business could be closed. But as soon as you have started to apply for a license, normally everything is ok.
On the other side, to get a license can take many, many months - if you will get it.
A well-known owner and manager of a restaurant in Kuah waited for many, many months. Upon his inquiries, he was told that his approval needed to have a statement of Interpol showing he had no past convictions - and this statement from Interpol just didn't come. The restaurant owner then managed to get a statement about him from the police of his home country and that was finally accepted.
Another thing are the Liquor Licenses. As far as I was told by people whom I know, there hasn't been any issues in the past years at all. What the restaurants do is, to pay the fine if they are caught, which will cost them less than the license anyway, and will be good for selling liquor for some time. Should another guy from the government show up one month later, the owner of the restaurant will just show him, that he has already paid a fine, and the guy from the government will say: "Sorry, I didn't know that", and leave. That's how it works here.
This year the City Council seems to have changed the procedures. From now on a Foreigner with a RM 350,000.00 paid-up-capital - Sdn. Bhd will not get a license at all - but the licence will be issued to his Bumiputra Partner.
Prior to the new rules, it was only possible to get a license after having gotten the Work Permit. But as now it is possible to get the licence for the Bumiputra Partner, the licence becomes - at least in some cases - a prerequisit for getting a work permit.
