PUTRAJAYA, MALAYSIA : The visa for health tourists to Malaysia has been extended from 30 days to 6 months effective immediately. Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak said yesterday the cabinet committee on tourism agree with the Home Ministry's suggestion that health tourists be given a long stay and multiple entries in their visas.
" This is to meet our aim to promote health tourism in the country," he said after chairing the committee's meeting here.He said tourists applying for the health visa must have certain documents like letters from the hospitals treating them.
He said the committee also decided that workers at all major airports in the country, especially the KL Internatioanl Airport, must be Malaysian citizens.
Najib said this must be complied with as soon as possible although the government realised that the companies carrying out various works at the airports had to make some adjustments.
"We will issue rulings to MAB (Malaysia Airports Berhad) to ensure the workers are Malaysian citizens."
He said the committee noted that there were still many compliants about the taxi service in Malaysia, ranging from not using the meter to the capacity of the taxies, and would refer them to the relevant ministries for further action.
He said the committee intended to make Malaysia a major shopping destination in the region because foreign tourist spending in the country is still low, constituting only 25% of each tourist's total expenditure whereas in other countries the figure had reached 50%.
"As such, the committee has decided that this will be our target in the near future ... may be by 2010 we can achieve our aim of getting each tourist to spend 50% of their expenditure on shopping.
"To realise this, the government has to consider several measures and these measures have implications in terms of policy, taxes and so forth."
He said if each tourist were to spend half of this expenditure on shopping, the country's revenue from tourists receipts alone this year would amount to RM10 billion.
Najib said the committee also agreed to give special incentives to develop cultural products for the tourism industry.
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------> Issued by : Bernama
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