Materia Medica Malaysiana

Malaysia fears providing pollution figures amid haze will hurt economy

KUALA LUMPUR : Malaysia said air pollution figures would remain a state secret due to fears the economy would be hurt by revealing how much smog from neighbouring Indonesia had blanketed parts of the country.

"The only problem is that it gets distorted by the international media. It then gives a grim picture of Malaysia," deputy prime minister Najib Razak said Thursday.

"It could be overplayed and then it will have an adverse effect on the economy," he added.

In 1997, at the height of the haze crisis, Malaysia classified the air pollution index as an official secret.

Malaysia now only refers to air quality as "good, moderate, unhealthy or hazardous" after banning the release of air pollution figures for fear it might drive away tourists.

The tourism sector is Malaysia's second largest foreign exchange earner after manufacturing.

The pollution index measures the quality of air on a scale of zero to 300. It considers zero to 50 as good, 51 to 100 as moderate, 101 to 200 as unhealthy and 201 to 300 as very unhealthy. Anything above 300 is hazardous.

Asmah Ibrahim, department of environment air division head told AFP that the overall situation in the Klang Valley had improved but in Port Klang, west of here, in the southern Johor state and Malacca -- the air quality remained "unhealthy."

Malaysian environment officials blame forest fires in neighbouring Indonesia's Sumatra island for the haze which has drifted to Malaysia since last week from across the narrow Malacca Straits. The busy straits divides the two countries.

On Wednesday the opposition Chinese-dominated Democratic Action Party (DAP) urged the government to make public the pollution index throughout the country to fully minimise health hazards posed by the haze.

"It was most short-sighted decision for while Malaysians support tourists promotion to bring in tourist revenue, this cannot be at the expense of the health and welfare of the citizens or those of the tourists themselves," DAP chairman Lim Kit Siang said in a statement.

Lim said in the era of information technology, it is sheer folly for the government to pretend that it could mislead foreign tourists into believing the air in Malaysia is clean.

Marine police have issued haze alert for seafarers plying the Malacca Straits where hundreds of ships pass through daily.

"Visibility in the Malacca Straits has been reduced to just one kilometre (0.62 miles) from the normal six kilometres due to the haze. I advise ships and barter-traders to put on navigational lights," Abdul Salam Abdul Halim, marine police chief in the sourthern Johor state told AFP.

Abdul Salam warned ships to remain alert because they usually travel at about 15 to 20 knots and with poor visibility, they do not have sufficient time to avoid a head-on collision and advised fishermen to fish near the coast instead into the open sea.

- AFP