Kuala Lumpur (VNA) – The COVID-19 pandemic hascaused losses of about 45 billion ringgit (around 10.5 billion USD) toMalaysia’s tourism and cultural industries in the first half of 2020, Bernamanews agency has reported.
Speaking with reporters on June 27, Malaysian Minister ofTourism, Arts and Culture Nancy Shukri said tourism is one of the hardest-hiteconomic sectors and is expected to be the last to recover.
To support the sector, she said the Ministry of Tourism,Arts and Culture would strengthen the domestic tourism initiatives under theCuti-Cuti Malaysia campaign.
The ministry will intensify public relation activities toboost 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 10million ringgit managed by SME Bank.
Last year, Malaysia welcomed a total of 26.1 milliontourists, raking in more than 86 billion ringgit./.