[KUALA LUMPUR] As China reopens its borders later this week, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim gave assurance that public health remains the country’s priority and his government will not compromise this over the economy.

“Public health is our priority now and we will not loosen the health-related measures for tourism and economic growth. We are standing firm on this,” he told reporters at a media conference on Wednesday (Jan 4).

The details of the measures will be announced by Health Minister Zaliha Mustafa soon, said Anwar. Health surveillance at all international entry points will be strengthened, especially for arrivals from countries with higher Covid-19 cases, including China and the United States.

However, he stressed that the government was not discriminating against any country, reiterating the point that these tighter border measures are applied to travellers from all nations.

“There was no spike of infections that could be related to any country. This does not mean we relax rules for any country, including China. We have to monitor accordingly,” said Anwar.

He added: “We don’t want to make any hasty decisions just because of several reports. If we look at the global situation as a whole, the problem is more complex.”

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On Dec 30, Malaysia’s Ministry of Health announced stricter measures to curb the spread of Covid-19 in anticipation of the larger number of arrivals from China.

These include fever screenings for all arrivals, and referring suspected cases, such as those with a travel history to China or contact with those who did, to undergo immediate Covid-19 testing.

The authorities will also conduct testing on wastewater samples from all flights arriving from China.

Anwar said that Malaysia received 336,000 visitors from China in 2022, with the majority of them being tourists. For the month of December, there were 53,000 arrivals from China.

According to data from Tourism Malaysia, China was the third-largest country in terms of tourist arrivals in Malaysia.

More than three million Chinese tourists visited Malaysia in 2019, out of a total of 26.1 million arrivals.

Tourism players in Malaysia that The Business Times (BT) spoke to are generally upbeat about the economic benefits due to the return of tourists from the world’s second-largest economy, although they are also worried about the possible challenges to public health.

Last Friday, the Malaysia Tourism Agency Association urged the government to temporarily suspend the entry of Chinese tourists until China’s daily Covid-19 case count decreased.

Kuala Lumpur Tourist Guides’ Association chairman Peter Pan said: “I agree that strict measures should be applied to all inbound tourists, and not just Chinese travellers, as new variants of the coronavirus could be brought in by anyone.”

Malaysian Inbound Tourism Association deputy president Mint Leong shared the same view that there won’t be an influx of Chinese tourists in the first three months as many airlines have yet to resume all the flights from China to Malaysia.

“The interest is there, our members have received enquiries on quotations for small group trips after China announced the lifting of its travel restrictions,” she told BT.

With the larger tour groups likely to return on a significant scale only when there are more available flights, Leong noted that this will provide some buffer for Malaysia’s businesses to prepare themselves to welcome a bigger surge in Chinese tourists in the second half of the year.