‘Many activities for youth will be held this summer’

1,900 youth initiatives received financial, moral support

KUWAIT CITY, June 27: Assistant Undersecretary for Youth Projects Affairs at State Ministry for Youth Affairs Shafeeq AlSayed Omar has affirmed the ministry will carry out many activities throughout this year in line with the selection of Kuwait as the Arab Youth Capital for the year 2017, reports Al-Anba daily.

He revealed that many sports activities will be organized this summer and the youths can participate in them until the launch of the actual activities in the beginning of September and amid the presence of all young people after the summer vacation.

Omar said the youth projects sector is part of the executive branch of the ministry through its support for all initiatives and youth projects related to economic aspects and creative arts.

He pointed out that the youth projects sector endorses all youth projects by providing them with material, logistical, information and developmental support through training and rehabilitation.

Omar explained that the State Ministry for Youth Affairs is regarded as the first experiment for all youths interested in non-profit initiatives, as it helps them by providing the required money. The

Aviation analyst Will Horton estimated Hamad International Airport, one of the Middle East’s busiest, would handle 76 percent as many flights in early July compared with the same period last year, a loss of about 27,000 passengers a day.

The airport did not respond to a Reuters request for data on the impact of sanctions.

Visitors from the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council usually account for almost half of all visitors to Qatar. So a decision by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt to cut diplomatic and transport ties on June 5 hit traffic hard.

“Doha in early July, assuming the restrictions remain, will have less capacity than a year ago — a confronting figure for a region where every month sets year-on-year records,” said Horton, senior analyst at Australia’s CAPA Centre for Aviation.

There is no breakthrough in sight for the crisis in which the four Arab nations issued an ultimatum to Doha to close Al Jazeera television, curb ties with Iran, shut a Turkish base and pay reparations. A defiant Doha has denied accusations of supporting terrorism and says the demands are unrealistic.

Hundreds of weekly flights to and from Qatar have already been cancelled because of the dispute. Hamad airport will lose fees paid by airlines and passengers, as well as terminal revenue from duty free shops and restaurants.

Air links suspended by the four Arab states represented around 25 percent of flights by state-owned Qatar Airways, one of the region’s big three carriers.

Elsewhere in the tourist sector, hotels, restaurants and other facilities have had to find new sources of services and goods, in some cases, at higher cost, due to the boycott, said Rashid Aboobacker, senior director at TRI Consulting in Dubai.

“A substantial drop in visitor arrivals is likely to force hotel and real estate developers to re-evaluate their strategies and priorities, potentially causing delays to some of the ongoing (tourism) projects,” he said.

Qatar’s World Cup organising committee said sanctions had not affected preparations for the tournament and alternative sources for construction materials had been secured.

Qatar has said 46,000 rooms will be available to host fans by the time of the World Cup. In March, it had 119 hotels with 23,347 rooms, according to the tourism authority.

Developing business and leisure tourism is part of Qatar’s drive to develop its economy away from reliance on oil and gas revenue. Doha aims to raise the tourism sector’s contribution to GDP to 5.2 percent by 2030 from around 4.1 percent now, while raising the number of people employed by nearly 70 percent to 127,900.

Sunset near Shuwaikh Port. — Ahmed Surour — KUNA.

ministry considers the trial period and simulation to provide assistance to young people by giving them the opportunity to train them.

The Youth Initiatives and Projects Department is a gateway to youth initiatives, which works on removing obstacles for young people to facilitate their initiatives so that material support is provided for these initiatives.

He revealed that 1,900 youth initiatives so far have received financial, media and moral support, adding that all the names of initiators who have been supported can be obtained from the ministry’s website.