PETALING JAYA,Mar 16: Tourism, arts and culture minister Nancy Shukri has given an assurance that regular discussions are being held with stakeholders and associations to revive the tourism industry, which has been badly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
This comes after Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Economic Affairs) Mustapa Mohamed urged the tourism sector to submit a working paper to the Economic Action Council (EAC).
In a statement today, Nancy said efforts to help the tourism industry by Mustapa’s office were in line with those taken by her ministry.
She said her ministry was in “constant communication” with all stakeholders. “As an example, in February this year, (the ministry) had conducted five discussions through the Crisis Management Taskforce (CMT) involving more than 30 industry representatives to get their feedback on the challenges they were facing and any recommendations they propose.”
Nancy said her ministry had looked into “every suggestion” brought forward by industry players, and that it was committed to act on matters or complaints falling under its purview.
She said, however, that there had been issues raised which did not fall under the ministry, such as the wage subsidy programme, the reopening of international borders, and the temporary 50% cut in passenger service charge (PSC) at airports.
“In these matters, all recommendations and motions brought up have been brought to the relevant ministries for further action,” she said.
Nancy also said her ministry had discussed several issues concerning the tourism sector with the National Security Council (MKN).
“As a result, tourism activities under the conditional movement control order (CMCO) and recovery movement control order (RMCO) areas were allowed,” she said.
For the arts sector, she said, the government had announced the reopening of arts, culture and heritage premises such as museums and art galleries to the public.
Mustapa had earlier noted that while some sectors like services, manufacturing, agriculture and construction had shown signs of recovery, tourism operators were still impacted by the pandemic.
