PUTRAJAYA, MAY 29 — The Tourism Ministry has submitted its proposal for loosening visa-on-arrival (VOA) applications for China tourists to the Cabinet, seeking to tap into a profitable market.

Director-general Datuk Musa Yusof said the ministry has also requested the Immigration Department to allocate additional entry points for VOA facilities throughout the country.

"We will announce the additional VOA facilities at a later date in time,” he said during the press conference on Malaysia’s tourism performance for the first quarter of 2019.

Musa said the ministry has also approached the Home Ministry, and asked it to consider including Brunei as one of the regional countries where Chinese tourists can obtain VOAs.

"Currently it is limited to Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia. So for example, if you have Chinese tourists in Brunei who are interested in visiting our country, they are unable to obtain VOAs at entry points near the borders.

"So we have asked the Home Ministry to consider allowing this, say at the Sungai Tujuh checkpoint near Miri in Sarawak,” he said.

Some 841,800 tourists from China visited the country from January to March this year, compared to 773,732 during the same period last year.

Chinese tourists were also the biggest spenders among Asian tourists to Malaysia this quarter, excluding those from the Asean region, with an expenditure per capita of RM3.7 billion.