PETALING JAYA: The official website of the International Trade and Industry Ministry (Miti) crashed temporarily on the first day of applications for certain businesses to operate during the third phase of the movement control order (MCO).

Attempts to access the website on Monday (April 13) were unsuccessful and an error message was displayed.

Miti gave the green light for businesses to apply for approval to operate starting at 9am.

It had said earlier on its Twitter account that the application process for companies would be fully digital.

It added that no documents had to be uploaded but applicants should prepare all relevant information beforehand.

Twitter user Pan Yau Seng commented that Miti should have anticipated the high traffic volume and be aware of its servers' capacity.

"They should have increased the capacity before asking us to log in and released the forms to the public earlier," said Pan.

In response, Miti said the portal was temporarily inaccessible as "more than 100,000 companies have applied so far".

"Please keep trying and the server will direct you when a slot is available. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused. Thank you," it tweeted.

Companies are required to prepare the following detailed information for their applications to be processed:

1. Company registration details including Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM); priorities license number and local authorities license number;

2. The correspondence and operations address of the company. A company can list up to 10 operational addresses;

3. The company’s estimated revenue for 2017,2018 and 2019 and;

4. The company’s total number of permanent employees, including the name, identification card number and contact number of each employee and any other identification details and nature or scope of work in the company.

On Friday (April 10) Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the government had agreed to allow businesses in selected sectors to resume operations in stages during the MCO period, which has been extended for another two weeks until April 28.

However, he said the selected businesses would only be allowed to operate under strict movement control and healthcare guidelines.