LAHORE, April 26: Federal Tourism Minister Ghazi Gulab Jamal has proposed formation of a tourism organization of Islamic countries and establishment of a fund for the promotion of tourism. Speaking on the importance of tourism within Islamic countries at the working session of the International Islamic Economic and Cultural Conference here on Tuesday, the minister said Ummah should take steps for promoting tourism in Islamic countries because tourists could find themselves more comfortable in spending their holidays there owing to the sameness of religion, fraternity and brotherhood.

He said a tourism organization was necessary to facilitate the development of necessary infrastructure for tourism promotion and the establishment of the fund for meeting financial requirements. He said the Arab Travel Market Fair held annually in Dubai or Kuala Lumpur could be used for the promotion of tourism on the pattern of the World Travel Market and ITB. Frontier formalities, visa and currency regulations were also required to be made tourist friendly granting the most-favoured status to tourists from Islamic countries. Expert group meetings should be held annually to review and monitor the progress and problems of tourism among Islamic states, he said.

The minister said Turkey, Egypt and Indonesia had good tourist training institutes. A centre of excellence could be established for the training of professionals from Islamic countries in tourism management with the assistance of the Organization of Islamic Countries and the Islamic Development Bank. The institutes could offer training facilities for meeting the demand for professionals. Establishment of chains of four and five star hotels and motels and increase in frequency of scheduled flights among Islamic countries was also necessary to promote tourism, he said.

He said Islamic countries required to promote tourism as it was the fastest growing industry in the world and had generated a $6 billion income owing to the movement of 760 million tourists globally during 2004, according to the World Tourism Organization estimates. He said the share of Islamic countries in the global tourism market was much below their potential despite their rich diversity of historical and cultural destinations. These countries could benefit from their tourism potential with pro-active planning, good management and creative marketing. He said foreign tourism during 2004 contributed more than three times what Pakistan earned from the export of raw cotton and roughly equivalent to one-third of the value of rice export during 2003-4. In terms of export earnings, the tourism achieved the highest 56.9 per cent growth among all export commodities.

The minister said tourism was the only sector which helped eradicate poverty. Pakistan and other Islamic countries with same socio-economic development level must focus on tourism to alleviate poverty through community mobilization like Malaysia and Indonesia.

He said correction of the wrongly-acquired image of terrorist destinations instead of tourist destinations after the 9-11 incident was also a great challenge for the Islamic countries. The deputy secretary-general of the World Tourism Organization had taken up the matter with the relevant countries after he drew his attention towards it during the 46th meeting of the WTO Commission on South Asia held in the city recently. International tourism being passport to peace and prosperity the Islamic countries needed it for its economic benefits.

The minister said two-third of the tourism in the world took place between the affluent countries and regional blocs. Islamic countries had a great wealth of attractions for tourists besides a substantial movement of tourists for religious purposes. Its scope could be extended to tourism for leisure, culture, health, education, sports and shopping. Female segment of tourists could be attracted for shopping, education and health, he said.

Speaking on investment policies, incentives and facilities offered to foreign investors, Board of Investment Director-General Riazul Haq said the government had deregulated investment and no permission was required for establishing industries or bringing the investment or its repatriation with profit. He said there had been a 19 per cent increase in foreign direct investment and exports had crossed $10 billion per annum.

He said Pakistan offered lucrative investment opportunities with multinationals earning a profit up to 150 per cent. He said the government would never withdraw the incentives offered to investors. There were bright prospects for investment in oil and gas, construction, coal and corporate farming sectors.