KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia will lose out on at least RM30 billion in tourist dollars this year if it discriminates against visitors from China.
Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing said Chinese nationals had a vaccination rate of over 90 per cent and were not singled out by among others,Thailand, Indonesia and Cambodia, countries he said they would opt for instead.
The ministry is expecting some six million Chinese tourists this year, up from the estimated three million in 2019 which earned the country some RM15.3 billion in revenue.
Tiong said it boggled him that China had been solely highlighted as a 'high-risk' country when many others topped the charts of Covid-19 infections and deaths.
He said it was worth noting that there had been no pressure for stricter conditions to be imposed on tourists from the United States, when the country recorded 99 million infections with 1.08 million deaths.
He said China, on the other hand, registered 31,000 deaths with 10.16 million cases recorded.
Malaysia, he said, had been receiving a steady number of tourist arrivals from the US, Japan, Korea and France - countries with high numbers of cases but not discriminated against.
"Taking into consideration China's 1.4 billion population, the death toll is only 0.00002 percent.
"Malaysia's confirmed cases are 5.02 million with 36,824 deaths. This is 0.7 per cent.
"The ratio of infected patients in Malaysia is 14.8 per cent when China is 0.7 per cent ... we have half the infection rate of China," he said.
Tiong told the New Straits Times that last year, 300,000 Chinese visitors came over when the country was already seeing a spike in cases, but that there was no corresponding hike in cases recorded in Malaysia.
He also said the Tourism Ministry would continue to promote Malaysia as a travel destination of choice, without compromising on the safety and health of the people.
"If inbound travellers are found to have Covid-19 symptoms, they will be required to undergo Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests.
"If they test positive, they will be quarantined.
"Where, how long and the other questions you may have, these questions should be directed to the Health Ministry."