S’wak, Indonesia to form working committee on tourism — Lee
KUCHING: The state government and Indonesian government will form a joint working committee to discuss issues such as tourism as well as land and air transportation between Sarawak and Kalimantan, Indonesia.
Assistant Minister of Tourism Datuk Lee Kim Shin said this was to ensure that administrative matters on these issues coul be resolved sooner while enhancing closer ties between the state and neighbouring Kalimantan.
“At the moment, we have three channels of communication with Indonesia; namely through Brunei Darussalam- IndonesiaMalaysia-Philippines East Asean Growth Area (BIMP-Eaga), Sosial Ekonomi Malaysia- Indonesia ( Sosek Malindo) and East Asia Inter- Regional Tourism Forum ( Eatof) which only meet once a year.
“We will form the joint working committee at local working level that will meet once every three months to ensure that both sides can facilitate each other whether it’s related to tourism, air and land transportation, immigration, trade, inland port and so on,” he told a press conference after chairing a meeting with Consul General of Indonesia in Kuching Jahar Gultom and his delegation at Masja here yesterday.
He also disclosed that the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture would visit TebeduEntikong border on Sept 20 to look into developing the potentials of ‘border tourism’ between the state and Kalimantan.
“We are also planning to bring our tour operators to Pontianak, Indonesia as part of our efforts to promote Sarawak’s tourism there,” he added.
Lee, who is also Assistant Mini ster of Land and Ai r Transportation and Safety, also touched on air linkages between Kuching and Pontianak which is currently provided only by Indonesian airline Xpress Air.
“We used to have MASwings but the airline ceased operation on this route since March this year. However, I have requested for MASwings to resume this flight ( Kuching-Pontianak) during my recent meeting with MASwings chief executive officer ( Captain Izham Ismail) because there is a need for this flight as we have quite a number of Indonesians from Kalimantan coming here for medical tourism, education and business trade.
“We will also work on how we can support Xpress Air and MASwings to have more flights so that those from Kalimantan, if they want to travel to Hong Kong, they can catch the direct flight from Kuching which is much nearer compared to if they f ly from Kuala Lumpur or Jakarta,” he explained, adding that land transportation between Kuching and Pontianak was currently facilitated by six express bus companies on a daily basis as well as two express bus companies from Pontianak, which have been given an annual permit.
On a related matter, Lee noted that Jahar had requested for an extension in the opening hours of the Tebedu- Entikong border in view of the one- hour time difference between Kuching and Kalimantan.
Also present at the meeting were Assistant Minister of River Transpor t at ion and Safety Liwan Lagang, Ministry of Infrastructure Development and Transportation permanent secretary Safri Zainudin and senior ministry officials.