BANGKOK: Australia has expressed hope that Malaysia will revoke conditions imposed on the Lynas Malaysia Sdn Bhd (Lynas) rare earths processing plant at the Gebeng Industrial Estate in Kuantan.
Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said this was conveyed by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison in their meeting at the 35th Asean Summit here on Sunday.
“Lynas is an Australian company and has made a large investment in Malaysia. They are hoping that we can revoke the conditions imposed on the company; we will do so within three months after we have made a decision.
“We cannot ask them to leave Malaysia but (on the radioactive residue), we will place them in several locations... maybe in Pahang or several other places to reduce the (radioactive) intensity.
“In the future, we will ask the company to process the raw material first so that the waste produced would not be as it is now,” he told a press conference here on Monday.
The Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB) had in August renewed Lynas’ operating licence for six months, but imposed three conditions.
AELB said the conditions were decided upon after the Australian federal government and the Western Australian state government informed Malaysia that they would not be accepting Lynas’ radioactive Water Leach Purification (WLP) residue.
The conditions include Lynas having to move its cracking and leaching process, currently conducted in its plant in Gebeng, out of Malaysia.
The company, said AELB, will have to institute a plan to build a cracking and leaching facility abroad, which will begin operations within four years from the date the licence is given.
Once the facility abroad is in place, the licence holder will no longer be permitted to produce radioactive residue in excess of 1 Becquerel per gram in its Gebeng plant.
Dr Mahathir said the government is constantly aware of the impact of restrictive regulations on foreign investors such as Lynas, to avoid affecting efforts to draw foreign direct investment into the country in the future.
“As such, we have to consider the impact of foreign direct investment into Malaysia. We do not want them to think that we have broken our promise… the result would be an end to foreign investment into the country,” he added.