KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 18): Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said the proposed National Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Strategic Plan was agreed upon at the National SDG Council Meeting 2024 on Wednesday.

He said the plan was formulated in the government's efforts to bring Malaysian business entities in phases towards ESG compliance and reporting, and even to a level beyond compliance, thus creating a competitive advantage and sustainable development for the country.

“I mentioned the need to ensure that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are not burdened with high costs in their efforts to comply with ESG guidelines, hence it is recommended that a dry run for ESG implementation also be carried out by public-listed companies, multinationals and government-linked companies (GLCs).

“This is important to support SMEs in their respective value chains. As such, all relevant ministries are advised to strengthen appropriate training programmes for targeted business entities,” he said in a Facebook post after chairing the meeting.

On the current performance of the country's Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicators, Anwar said the meeting was informed that Malaysia had made encouraging progress with a projected achievement of 43% of the SDG target by 2030.

He said this surpassed the global average achievement projection of 17%.

“The Madani government remains steadfast in its adherence to the country's SDG indicator targets, along with the targets in the Madani Economy framework as the country's overall approach is very important in intensifying and improving the initiatives already lined up,” he added.

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