Industrial players spent RM2.97 bln on environmental protection in 2020 – DoSM
22 Jun 2022
Industry players in Malaysia spent RM2.97 billion on environmental protection expenditure in 2020, according to the Survey of Environmental Protection Expenditure 2021.
Department of Statistics Malaysia (DoSM) chief statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin said during this period, industry players in Malaysia faced a challenging business environment.
This was mainly due to the implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO) in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19, he said in a statement following the release of the report by DoSM that presented the statistics on the environmental protection expenditure for the reference year 2020.
Based on the Environmental Protection Survey Report 2021, he said the operating expenditure remained dominant with a share of 74.4 per cent, whereas 25.6 per cent was spent on capital expenditure.
Pollution management topped expenditure at RM2,103.7 million or 70.8 per cent, followed by waste management at RM766.8 million or 25.8 per cent and environmental assessment and charges at RM67.2 million or 2.3 per cent.
Mohd Uzir said the manufacturing sector was the main driver for the environmental protection expenditure with a share of 80.1 per cent.
“The environmental protection expenditure for rubber gloves manufacturing subsector increased 2.3 times higher than the previous year as production ramped up to meet global demands during the pandemic,” he said.
Mohd Uzir said the pandemic has resulted in an increase in the environmental protection expenditure for the waste treatment and disposal subsector with an expenditure of RM162.7 million from RM155.1 million in 2019, growing by 4.9 per cent.
“This was mainly due to the increase in the quantity of clinical waste from health facilities including personal protective equipment (PPE) and COVID-19 test equipment for handling of COVID-19 patients in health facilities and government-gazetted quarantine centres,” he said.
Source: Bernama
