ISLAMABAD, Dec 9: Image building is the biggest challenge the country is facing at present and only an effective projection of tourism industry can solve this problem, Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz said here on Tuesday.

He was speaking as chief guest at the opening ceremony of a seminar on “Culture, cultural heritage and cultural tourism”, organized by the ministry of culture and tourism, and Unesco.

“Unfortunately, we have failed to market ourself in an adequate manner in the international market, and unlike ground realities, whereby Pakistan is one of the few countries which are street-crime free, we have been projected as an unsafe tourist destination,” he added.

“I have met a number of foreigners who after visiting our country were of the view that unlike the information and image they had prior to their visit, Pakistan is as safe as any developed country.”

This is a clear reflection of the fact that all the stakeholders, both public and private, have not been able to perform their duties up to the mark, he maintained.

“Today, 12 per cent of world GDP comes from the tourism industry and the countries who wouldn’t be paying due attention towards this sector would be at the losing end,” he added.

Referring to the cultural heritage and cultural tourism, the minister said a better preservation and conservation of rare sites and through their better projection, the image of the country could be enhanced.

Pakistan has a rich cultural diversity which only few countries have, hence the national policy in this regard will go a long way to boast the economy.

He said the idea of formulation of a national policy on culture and cultural heritage, which includes the mapping of all tangible and intangible cultural resources throughout the country, deserved appreciation.

He also highlighted the need for private-public partnership in the tourism industry, saying gone were the days when governments used to manage every thing.

He urged the diplomats present on the occasion to reconsider their travel advisories as some of the countries have placed for their citizens intending to visit Pakistan.

Unesco representative Ingeborg Breines said for a country like Pakistan the relevance for economic development was an important dimension of a cultural heritage strategy and efforts were underway to show how cultural heritage might contribute to economic development.

In Unesco, effort to humanise the globalization process at all levels of society is to put culture and human development at the very centre of all development planning and processes.