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Community village plan
31/03/2006 The Star By IZATUN SHARI
KUALA LUMPUR: Foreigners signing up for the Malaysia, My Second Home
programme may soon be able to feel right at home under a “community village”
scheme, aimed at offering facilities tailored to their needs.
Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor said developers and
industry players would be encouraged to consider offering houses under the
proposed scheme, which would have different areas for those of different
nationalities.
“For instance, we can have Japanese or Korean villages and provide them with
everything they need,” he said recently.
He gave the example of Arab Square in Bukit Bintang here where a
“neighbourhood” for Middle Eastern visitors had been created with
restaurants and other businesses.
Tengku Adnan: ‘The scheme will offer different areas for those of different
nationalities’
The ministry, said Tengku Adnan, was holding talks with industry players and
Kuala Lumpur City Hall to study the possibility of building a proper Arab
village in the Klang Valley.
“I am also looking at how to get industry players to play their part so that
the scheme will be privately driven.”
The scheme is one of the proposals outlined by the ministry to restructure
the programme, which comes under its purview from tomorrow.
A one-stop centre for the programme would be set up in the ministry at
Menara Datuk Onn here.
Tengku Adnan said the Home Affairs Ministry, which had been overseeing the
programme, would place two immigration officers at the centre to process
applications.
“Sometimes, applicants are given the runaround. We are looking at changing
certain rules to overcome that,” he said.
The ministry would seek feedback from industry players and local authorities
to iron out problems applicants face, he added.
Currently, there are some 8,000 participants under the programme, the
majority from China and Bangladesh.
Tengku Adnan said the “Malaysia Truly Asia” tagline would be maintained, but
tourism promotion efforts would be fine-tuned.
The ministry was also planning to promote “spiritual tourism”, he said,
adding that sites already identified included a century-old Buddhist temple
in Brickfields, Batu Caves and old mosques in Malacca, Pahang, Terengganu
and Kelantan.
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