Having been locked in for almost two years, the reopening of national borders is something Malaysians will very much look forward to.

Since the first movement control order was enforced in this country on March 18, 2020, our national borders have remained shut or conditionally open for cross-border travels.

With the pandemic somewhat moderated, the Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) between Malaysia and Singapore was opened on November 29 last year. Just as we thought we should see the light at the end of the tunnel for local businesses and the tourism-related industry, the highly transmissible Omicron variant began to spread across the globe, smashing government’s plan to reopen our borders to international travelers.

National Security Council (MKN) chairman Muhyiddin Yassin has on two occasions proposed to reopen the country’s borders on January 1 and March 1 this year, in a bid to revive the sluggish national economy, but has to give in to the virus in the end.

Nevertheless, defense minister Hishammuddin Hussein said after a meeting with three other cabinet colleagues on Monday that it is absolutely necessary for the country to reopen its borders and that the prime minister will announce later when the borders will reopen, meaning this “good news” is about to become a reality soon.

Some may doubt whether it is appropriate to reopen the borders now, given the staggering daily new infection numbers hovering around the 30,000-mark.

However, given our exceptionally high vaccination rate and the drastic reduction in ICU occupancy and mortality rates by 80% to 90% since last August, it shows a decoupling trend between the numbers of new infections and serious illnesses based on relevant studies and data theories.

Hishammuddin said the health ministry would continue to monitor the situation over the next two weeks before deciding whether to fully reopen our borders.

If the pandemic is under control and the safety conditions allow, we should stop locking down the country as this will be construed as a form of self-imposed economic sanction.

Bank Negara statistics show that the country’s GDP only expanded by 3.1% last year. Although that was an improvement from the 5.6% contraction in 2010, we have yet to reach pre-pandemic levels.

The 2022 GDP is expected to grow between 5.5% and 6.5%. Nevertheless, if we do not reopen our borders to allow commercial and tourist markets to operate optimally, it will be hard for the country to achieve significant economic recovery in the absence of a booming tourist industry.

According to the statistics department, our tourism-related industry recorded a loss of RM135 billion in 2020 since the country was first locked down, widening to RM165 billion in 2021, when the country’s GDP stood at RM1.45 trillion. This shows how important the tourist industry is to the country’s economic recovery.

Take individual cities for instance, due to the absence of Singapore consumers, the retail sector in Johor Bahru has been plunged into an unprecedented dilemma with many shops already winding up and the surviving ones looking forward to prompt reopening of our borders.

Over the past two years, not fewer than ten 5-star hotels in KL have shuttered. Although Shangri-La Group narrowed its losses in the last quarter of 2021, the hotel chain still suffered an annual loss of RM91.75 million.

While we do not expect a sudden influx of foreign tourists soon after reopening, we should see moderate increase in arrivals from neighboring Singapore, Thailand and Brunei, and this should prepare us for tourists from Greater China, Japan, Europe, the Americas and Australia later on.

We chalked 26.1 million tourist arrivals in 2019. It is hoped that after we reopen our borders, the local tourist industry will recover fully by 2023.

As Hishammuddin has said, we should make things easy for inbound visitors. If they have already received their booster doses, they will only need to go through the rapid tests and comply with the SOPs. We should not deliberately slap them with fines for SOP violation as this will make them feel disgusted.

With the reopening of national borders, Malaysians will also be able to travel freely to countries whose borders are also open to us. Following the successful implementation of VTL with Singapore, Brunei is expected to follow suit very soon.

Meanwhile, the foreign ministry will also announce the list of countries with VTL potentials. Having been locked in for almost two years, the reopening of national borders is something Malaysians will very much look forward to.