Arts and culture industry has potential to generate higher national income — DPM
KUALA LUMPUR: Arts and culture is a promising industry, and has the potential of generating higher national income in the future, notes Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
He said it was a known fact that France had been particularly successful in arts and culturebased tourism, earning as much as US$ 256 billion annually, via tourism.
“It is good to learn from France and other cities and countries around the world on how they have been successfully developing strategies to promote the tourism and arts industry as the main contributor to national economic growth.
“The city of Paris is a great example of how arts and culture have become the main tourist attraction, contributing to its high Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and ranks as one of the five wealthiest regions in Europe,” he said when opening the Art Economy Conference 2015 and launching the ‘Rekayasa Kebudayaan’ book here yesterday.
The book in Bahasa Malaysia is translated from the French book, ‘L’ingenierie Culturelle’ (Cultural Engineering) authored by Claude Mollard.
Muhyiddin said in Malaysia, the creative industry which included arts and culture contributed about RM33 billion to the country’s GDP.
He noted, under the Economic Transformation Programme, the creative industry had received a RM17 million grant to carry out short-term programmes known as ‘Quick Wins’ for art performance for a period of between 2012 and 2014.
In line with efforts to create a culturally-rich society, Muhyiddin said various programmes were undertaken by the government to enhance appreciation of culture and arts among Malaysians.
“The government has been supporting the creative arts industry and will continue to emphasise the development of the industry which can potentially contribute to a higher GDP,” he said.
Muhyiddin, who is also Education Minister, said there were a number of universities, colleges and higher learning institutions which currently offered arts and design courses