‘Make Malaysia duty-free’

PETALING JAYA: The tourism industry is pushing for Malaysia to be transformed into a duty-free country as it aims to treble tourist expenditure by 2020.

Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board chairman Datuk Dr Victor Wee said that although duties on certain goods could generate some revenue for the Government, transforming into a duty-free country would be more beneficial in the long run. “Becoming a duty-free country could boost Gross National Income by RM9bil,” he said at a press conference yesterday, adding that 300 items had already been made duty-free since the beginning of this year.

Plenty to spend: Tan (second from left) won a RM100,000 shopping spree after being named grand prize winner of the MasterCard Shopathon Priceless Contest. With him are (from right) Dr Wee and MasterCard Worldwide vice president and senior country manager Jim Cheah.

Dr Wee said it was one of the major strategies being studied to increase tourist expenditure in the country. He said the aim was to increase tourist expenditure from RM54.6bil to RM168bil by 2020, with tourist arrivals expected to increase by 50% by then. Dr Wee noted that Malaysia had one of the lowest hotel accommodation rates in the world, but the country was still behind Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines in terms of tourist spending. He said shopping had been identified as one of the areas that could improve revenue.

“The Johor Premium Outlets mall, which is set to open on Dec 11, will also contribute to this,” he said after giving away the grand prize of a RM100,000 shopping spree to the winner of the MasterCard Shopathon Priceless Contest. Tan Kian Wee, 35, who won the contest held in conjunction with the recent 1Malaysia Mega Sale Carnival 2011, had to spend the entire prize money within a day while 11 other weekly winners received RM500 each.

-thestar online.