Maldives opens trade centre

Seeking investors: Maldivian High Commissioner to Malaysia Midath Hilmy and Dr Mahmood.

By K.W. MAK

THE Maldives needs international businesses to participate in its fast growing hospitality industry and there is no better time to take part than now as the country is calling for tenders.

Primarily a pricey European tourist destination, the Maldives does not attract many locals to partake in the numerous tourism products there, and the Maldives government wants to change that by further developing its tourism industry with the help of foreign players.

“Demand is greater than supply at the moment and that is driving prices up,” said Maldives Tourism and Civil Aviation Minister Dr Mahmood Shougy, citing the 100% occupancy rate for hotels in the month of February this year as an example.

He said the Maldives government was looking for international investors to participate in tenders for tourism projects that would open up the whole country to tourism.

“Presently, tourism is localised in a few areas,” said Dr Mahmood.

The government needs to develop five domestic airports with resorts to link up the chain of 1,190 coral islands that form the nation.

“As it is expensive to maintain an airport, a resort will be planned for the airport and form part of the package to make it economically viable for the investor,” said Dr Mahmood.

Other tenders that would be of interest to investors include three new transit hotels, a five-star 300-bed hotel in Male’, three new resorts and joint-venture opportunities with the Maldives Tourism Development Corpo-ration (MTDC).

Investment in existing resorts and hotels is also possible through the purchase of lease rights of islands, sub-leasing of resorts under construction and obtaining management rights of resorts to be developed.

All three investment methods can also be applied to resorts already in operation.

“We source a lot of materials from Malaysia for construction, but there are no major investors from Malaysia in our tourism industry,” said Dr Mahmood.

“There is also potential to develop Malaysia as a regional hub because many tourists use Malaysia and Singapore as a transit point to Maldives.”

The Maldives High Commission has opened a business service centre to provide information and facilitate business-to-business contact.

For more information, call Trade and Commerce First Secretary Ibrahim Naim at 03-2163 7244.

Source: The Star