By Jaythaleela K
MIRI, Sept 30: Sarawak Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah is elated with the RM106 million in total economic impact for business events this year, despite Covid-19.
“Between January and September this year, Sarawak achieved an estimated RM106 million on total economic impact, this amount has contributed to RM58 million in direct delegates expenditure, collecting tax revenue of RM6.4 million and opening 8,480 jobs within various sectors,” said Abdul Karim.
He said what attributed to these 31 total secured business events with 39,356 delegates days were the Business Events Planners Incentivised Packages.
Abdul Karim was speaking at the launching of Business Events Tribal Meet in Miri on Wednesday.
“The packages lend extensive support which injects additional funding as well as other financial incentives to help organisers get back on their feet and continue their planning processes,” he said.
On another note, Abdul Karim expressed his delight on Sarawak corporate meetings and incentives segments which he described as a transformative economic strategy, especially from incentives groups as the yield was far larger than other segments of business events.
“We are 68 per cent on achieving our target for the conventions segment this year and focusing on business events topics from Sarawak seven key focus areas, and we believed that the tourism impact which counts the number of delegates is just a portion of what’s important,” he said.
He pointed out that business events bring far greater valuethat can ultimately change the state economic sectors and communties overall better known as legacy impact.
“Legacy impact is the new mindset in the global business events sector, our sector is about bringing vast quantities or knowledge that stimulates investments , business connections and addressing societal challenges,” he said, adding that Sarawak will benefit from harnessing the legacy impact of business events.
The state government, he said, emphasised on bringing business events which are centred around Sarawak’s seven key focus areas being urban development , social development, environmental development , re-engineering economic growth, rural transformation on agriculture development, service industry and digital economy. — DayakDaily
