Indonesia welcomes tourism cooperation with Maldives

Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Indonesian government has hailed the opportunity for cooperation with the Maldives government in the tourism sector, including in the provision of human resources and boosting workforce capacity.

Deputy for industry and investment at the Ministry of Tourism, Rizki Handayani Mustafa, said in Jakarta on Wednesday that the Maldives government is interested in establishing cooperation for the provision of human resources (HR) for the tourism sector.

"They are interested in cooperating with us, including in the HR sector, because they need more workers. The country is building approximately 100 more projects, and they need more human resources," she informed at a press conference on the UN Tourism Meeting.

According to Mustafa, Indonesia has been exporting products to the Maldives and sending workers for its spa and fitness sector for quite some time.

She said that her party has six tourism polytechnics, which produce around two thousand graduates per year to meet the need for tourism HR.

She added that both governments could also collaborate in increasing the capacity of tourism human resources.

"We can send fresh graduates from our tourism schools to gain experience in the Maldives, which is indeed known for its high-end tourism," she expounded.

Regarding the results of the 37th joint meeting of the UN Tourism Commission for East Asia and the Pacific (CAP) and the UN Tourism Commission for South Asia (CSA), Mustafa informed that the annual UN Tourism event focused on discussing investment opportunities in tourism businesses.

She noted that UN Tourism has helped create investment guidelines for the Indonesian tourism sector, which can be used to attract investors to the country.

Indonesia is the first country in the Asia-Pacific to get investment guidelines devised by UN Tourism, which has made similar guidelines for 22 other countries.

UN Tourism Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili handed the investment guidelines for the Indonesian tourism sector to Tourism Minister Widiyanti Putri Wardhana at the joint meeting on Wednesday.