November 17, 2009 15:37 PM

Two Ministries To Identify Factors That Draw Africans To Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 17 (Bernama) -- The Tourism Ministry and Home Ministry will identify factors that draw Africans to Malaysia and who they are in an effort to curb social problems involving this group of visitors.

Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen said not many Africans visited this country as tourists but for certain purposes, "because we define tourists as those who come here not to do business".

"I have discussed this matter with the home minister (Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein), to study who these people are and what do they do here," she said in reply to a supplementary question from Datuk Sapawi Ahmad (Umno-Sipitang) in the Dewan Rakyat Tuesday.

Sapawi wanted to know what the government was doing to ensure that foreign visitors, especially from Africa, do not create social problems.

To his original question, Dr Ng said tourist arrivals in Malaysia increased by 14.3 per cent or to 2,078,485 in October this year compared with 1,818,304 in the same month last year.

"From January to October this year, the increase was 7.2 per cent to 19.45 million compared with 18.14 million in the same period last year, with many of the tourists coming from Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, India and the United Kingdom."

However, she said, the United Nations World Tourism Organisation report noted a drop in the number of tourists worldwide from January to July by seven per cent or to 500 million compared with 540 million in the same period last year.

-- BERNAMA

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