i Capital has written many times about economic growth versus economic development and said that Malaysia does not need headline-grabbing GDP growth rate but solid and sustained quality growth and economic development. Malaysia needs to learn from China in this respect. China started paying attention to quality growth even when the country’s GDP per capita was way below that of Malaysia. 

China used to import more than half of the world’s plastic waste before it introduced its National Sword policy in 2018 which significantly restricted the import of certain types of solid waste, particularly plastics. After China’s import ban, developed countries began to look for alternative countries to dump their plastic waste. Unfortunately, Malaysia became one of the replacement countries and became the world’s largest importer of plastic waste in 2023, according to an OECD report.

Last year, the Malaysian government implemented stricter rule to significantly tighten conditions for the imports of plastic scrap. This is a long-overdue action given that the 2025 Mismanaged Waste Index had placed Malaysia in a high-risk category, with about 26.4% of its plastic waste poorly managed. In fact, Malaysia should totally ban the imports of plastic waste and other solid waste.