June 28, 2020 | 18:45 (GMT+7)
Malaysia’s tourism, cultural sectors lose 10.5 billion USD due to COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused losses of about 45 billion ringgit (around 10.5 billion USD) to Malaysia’s tourism and cultural industries in the first half of 2020, Bernama news agency has reported.
Speaking with reporters on June 27, Malaysian Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Nancy Shukri said tourism is one of the hardest-hit economic sectors and is expected to be the last to recover.
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Malaysian Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Nancy Shukri (Source: www.thestar.com.my) |
To support the sector, she said the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture would strengthen the domestic tourism initiatives under the Cuti-Cuti Malaysia campaign.
The ministry will intensify public relation activities to boost the confidence of tourists to travel again.
Notably, small- and medium-sized tourism entrepreneurs (SMEs) will enjoy soft loans with a minimum of 50,000 ringgit and a maximum of 10 million ringgit managed by SME Bank.
Last year, Malaysia welcomed a total of 26.1 million tourists, raking in more than 86 billion ringgit.
Source: VNA