JOHOR BARU: Malaysia made a big jump in the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) by moving up 27 places to the 25th position among 132 countries this year.
It is the only Asean country in the top 25 of the 2012 EPI, said Malaysian EPI head and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) vice-chancellor Professor Datuk Dr Zaini Ujang. Among others in the top 25 are Switzerland, Norway, Germany, Iceland, Finland, Netherlands, Denmark, Japan and Belgium. He said in the Asia-Pacific region, Malaysia was placed third behind New Zealand and Japan.
Malaysia's new EPI ranking was announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday. “This new ranking will help boost the country's image in attracting more tourists and foreign direct investments,” Dr Zaini told a press conference here. He said the EPI was important because other than looking at a country's political stability and security, tourists and investors were giving more priority to environmental issues before deciding to visit or invest.
Dr Zaini, who is also the Malaysian Environmental Quality Council chairman, said the EPI was jointly developed by Yale and Columbia universities in collaboration with the World Economic Forum and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. “Our (UTM) role is to tabulate environmental data and findings collected from several ministries and submit them to Yale and Columbia,” he added.
Dr Zaini said that despite much improvement in the country's environmental challenges, there was still room for improvement, especially in forest management and climate change. “Our target now is to move to the 15th place. Hopefully, we can reach it by the 2014 World Economic Forum,” he added.
-thestar online.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.