‘Motac achieved two out of its three 100-day AKM targets as of Nov 8’

KUALA LUMPUR: The Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture (Motac) achieved two out of three of its 100-day Aspirasi Keluarga Malaysia (Malaysian Family Aspirations) or AKM targets for the Cabinet as of Nov 8.

Its minister Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri said they were the Tourism and Culture Sector Opening AKM and the MyCraftShopee AKM.

“The Opening of the Tourism and Culture Sector AKM achievement involved the opening of Langkawi as a Domestic Tourism Bubble Pilot Project and the opening of tourist destinations and cultural premises in all 14 states in Malaysia when interstate travel was allowed.

“In the beginning, movement was a bit slow but after interstate travel permission was given, 100 per cent performance was recorded,” she said in an interview in conjunction with the ‘AKM 100 Hari Cabinet’ (100 days of the Cabinet AKM targets) for Motac via Bulletin Bernama yesterday.

Detailing the achievements for the MyCraftShopee AKM, Nancy said the ministry had exceeded the target with 159 registrations compared to the target of 100 registrations.

“This AKM is related to the increase in the registration of craft entrepreneurs into the My CraftShopee digital platform to intensify promotional activities and marketing of craft products online,” she said.

However, the AKM for Voucher Redemption so far has recorded an achievement of 59.42 per cent with a redemption value of RM3,485,070 out of the total allocation of RM5,865,000.

“This AKM is for the redemption of incentives in the form of discounts, rebates or vouchers offered to airline users, the Malaysian Association of Hotels and the purchase of cultural products to revive domestic tourism and cultural activities that contribute to increasing income of tourism and cultural industry players.

“This AKM is not in our control, it is controlled by third parties so we need an injection from all parties to ensure it can be achieved. Besides that, it is a challenge also when not many people are interested in special visual art products… but God willing it will be achieved in the near future,” she said.

The implementation of the Voucher Redemption AKM is through rebates of RM100 involving Malaysia Airlines MAS, Firefly (RM30), AirAsia and Malindo Air (RM50 each) as well as RM500 vouchers for the purchase of visual art products worth RM1,000 to RM5,000 while RM1,000 vouchers for those valued RM5,000 and above.

In the meantime, Nancy said that although the 100-day period was to achieve 100 per cent implementation of the three Motac AKM targets, her ministry had further plans to ensure that the tourism as well as the arts and culture sectors could recover and rebuild in line with Motac’s tagline ‘Coming Back Stronger’.

“We don’t want to stop at just 100 days, we have the National Tourism Policy 2020-2030 and the National Cultural Policy 2021 and this will be our focus next year so that there will always be new products.

“I, as the minister, have set up a ‘war room’ to monitor the achievements every day at a meeting for an hour. When we get information on what we have not achieved, it puts pressure on us, especially the officers in charge,” she said.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob, who was sworn in as Malaysia’s ninth prime minister on Aug 21, 2021, had set 100-day AKM targets for each ministry starting Sept 1. — Bernama