Abdul Karim (centre) witnesses the handing-over between Lee (second left) and Ting, witnessed by Nancy and Hii (right).
KUCHING: Sarawak aims to attract more tourists from India, especially the country’s growing middle class and young professionals, says state Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah.
He said although the state had recorded 17,448 visitors from India between January and August this year, the figure was still small and that his ministry will be planning more activities to promote Sarawak to Indian nationals.
“There is a big jump in middle-class citizens in India, and the middle class are the ones who like to travel abroad apart from the upper class.
“I also believe that the young professionals in India are having more money now to travel and definitely a lot of them are interested in the kind of things that Sarawak is offering,” he told a press conference, here yesterday.
Abdul Karim, who is also state Youth and Sport Minister, added that during the Rainforest World Music Festival here, he had met and spoken to several visitors from India who had come to Sarawak specifically for the event.
“India, as we all see, is one of the fast-developing countries like China. We can see from the Rainforest World Music Festival last year and this year that there are many visitors coming from India.”
He also announced that his ministry will be sending a cultural troupe to perform at the High Commission of Malaysia in New Delhi, in conjunction with the Malaysia Day celebration.
According to him, his ministry has arranged with the Malaysian High Commissioner in India for the troupe to do some cultural performances during their tour there.
“The troupe will be in New Delhi for 10 days, starting from today (yesterday). While in New Delhi, they will visit and perform in six places.
“Many New Delhi folk may not know of Kuching or Sarawak, so this (troupe) is part of our effort to promote tourism and to promote Sarawak and Malaysia, in India.”
Abdul Karim added that Malaysian embassies in the United Kingdom, Singapore and the Vatican had also indicated interest in bringing over cultural troupes from Sarawak to perform in future.
Earlier, Abdul Karim witnessed the handing-over-of-duties between his former assistant minister Datuk Lee Kim Shin and new assistant minister Datuk Sebastian Ting.
Lee was appointed as Transport Minister during the recent state cabinet reshuffle.
Present to witness the handing-over was Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry permanent secretary Hii Chang Kee, and Youth and Sports Ministry permanent secretary Nancy Jolhi.