Day: January 22, 2007

The Maldives tourist industry has participated in several travel trade fairs in a drive to promote its resorts in European countries.

Over the past two weeks the Maldives Tourism Promotion Board organised stands at shows in the Austrian capital Vienna, the Dutch city of Utrecht and the city of Oslo in Norway.

The Reiseliv travel trade fair in Oslo is an important trade event in the Norway, targeting the travel trade and consumers in Scandinavia who want to make well informed decisions about their next long haul holiday trip.

Event organizers estimated that over 40,000 consumers and travel trade visited the fair.

Scandinavians are relatively wealthy and spend a lot of money on holidays to up-market destinations in the sun, to counteract the bleak cold winters they experience in northern Europe.

This is a difficult market to crack, however, because of the lack of direct air routes to the Maldives, and strong competition from more accessible destinations in the Mediterranean.

In conjunction with the Oslo event, Maldives Tourism Promotion Board held a news conference for media and travel trade to provide more information on the Maldives and in specific areas such as environmental initiatives and their impact on the Maldives economy and tourism trade.

In 2006 Maldives also welcomed 8,000 tourists from Netherlands. This is an increase of over 25 per cent compared to the year 2005, so a presence at the Vakantiebeurs travel fair in Utrecht was important for developing this growing source market.

Vakantiebeurs is one of the most important travel trade events in the Netherlands targeting tour operators and the general public. It is a popular annual event which last year attracted over 140,000 visitors. This year 19 representatives from ten private companies represented the Maldives tourism in Utrecht.

Austria is also considered to be a rapidly growing market for Maldives tourism, with a large number of citizens with high disposable income and easy accessibility to the Maldives. In 2006 Maldives attracted over 14,000 tourists from Austria, an increase of over 50 per cent compared to the previous year.

A significant number of people visited the Maldives stand at the Ferien Messe Fair in Vienna to gather more information on holiday opportunities in Maldives resorts.

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An event aimed at showcasing the Gayoom government’s “commitment to press freedom” ended in farce on Monday when Foreign Minister Dr Shaheed and Information Minister Mohamed Nasheed both inexplicably failed to turn up, while Fisheries Minister Abdullah Kamaluddeen slept through most of the meeting.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs organized the event, inviting journalists from across the political spectrum to come to Darubaruge in Male’ at 1:30pm. In addition to reporters, Maldivian Democratic Chairperson Mohamed Nasheed (Anni) also attended.

“We were told that Dr Shaheed and the Information Minister would be present. It was rumoured that they would announce a raft of new press regulations,” said Minivan News correspondent Will Jordan, who was at the event.

Jordan and other participants were disappointed, however, when advertised keynote speakers failed to appear, leaving only Chief Government Spokesperson Mohamed Hussain Shareef (Mundhu) to represent the regime’s views on press freedom.

Fortunately, the British High Commissioner to Colombo, Dominick Chilcott, was also on hand and spoke about the value of a free media from the perspective of a successful democracy.

Despite the best efforts of the two featured speakers, they nevertheless failed to engage the assembled press corps, who were perhaps understandably wary after hearing several unfulfilled promises of increasing media freedom over the last year.

When Mundhu opened the floor to questions from the assembled journalists, “There was an uncomfortable silence, and unimpressed journalists stared blankly at the government spokesperson,” Jordan reported.

In typically blunt fashion, Anni broke the silence, announcing, “The ministers haven’t turned up, this clearly isn’t going to plan. We might as well break for lunch.”

Mundhu explained that the ministers had been “tied up on business,” while Dominick Chilcott tried to reassure the skeptical audience that Shaheed and Nasheed were not “trying to pull a fast one” and deliberately evading journalists. Nevertheless, members of the press had already begun to leave. The meeting was not reconvened.

Had the meeting yielded an announcement of improved press freedom legislation or even a healthy debate on the state of the media in Maldives, it may have proved a badly needed publicity boost for the government, currently under fire from some quarters for continuing a crack-down on press freedom.

On Friday, Maldivian immigration officials deported Minivan News journalist Phillip Wellman, a US national, and banned him from returning to the country for two years.

The government claimed Wellman did not have the “proper authorization” to visit the country, while Minivan News assessed that the government made a politically motivated immigration decision against a journalist.

Wellman’s expulsion is the latest in a series of attacks on press freedom, including the continued prosecution of reporters under old, draconian regulations.

While the government has verbalized a commitment to press freedom on many occasions, there is minimal evidence to date that legislators have taken any concrete steps to protect journalists.

Today’s “Press Freedom Seminar” did not even proffer the standard rhetoric, sadly echoing instead the silence that plagues oppressed journalists in the Maldives.

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President Maumoon Gayoom advised Singapore’s top entrepreneurs to invest in the Maldives during a keynote speech he delivered at the Maldives Business Symposium on Friday.

During his speech, Gayoom said that the Maldives offered a “very attractive and stable environment” for foreign investors and stressed that the commercial ties between the Maldives and Singapore have not reached their maximum potential.

Singapore is currently the Maldives’ largest trading partner with over a quarter of the total imports to the Maldives coming from the country. The annual value of the imports is over US$ 200 million.

In his speech, Gayoom stressed that the Maldives had over US$100 million worth of foreign direct investment from Singapore and said he was confident that more Singaporean companies would invest in the Maldives due to the country’s current expansion in tourism.

Gayoom delivered his speech during a three-day, state visit to Singapore, which began on 18 January.

Speaking at a banquet welcoming Gayoom, Singapore’s President, S. R. Nathan, noted that his country’s investments in the Maldives have nearly doubled from the year 2000 to 2004. He also pointed to the fact that Singapore Airlines was one of the few airlines to have daily flights to and from the Maldives.

The Minister of Economic Development and Trade in Singapore, Mr. Mohamed Jaleel, also said he was convinced that Gayoom’s visit would boost trade and investment ties between the Maldives and Singapore.

The Business Symposium, which was attended by over 100 top entrepreneurs and investors, was jointly organised by the Maldives Government Trade Centre (MGTC) in Singapore and the Foreign Investment Service Bureau (FISB).

It was the first time the event had occurred.

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A military dictatorship could seize control of the Maldives if the country’s media do not become neutral and a “good constitution” is not installed warned former leader of the Human Rights Commission, Ahmed Mujthaba, on Saturday.

In a speech given at an Open Society meeting in Bandos Island Resort, Mujthaba urged politicians to create an appropriate constitution as soon as possible.

He said this was important due to the fact that it will take “many years” for democracy and a respect for human rights to become part of Maldivian culture even after the constitution’s completion.

Mujthaba pointed out that the Maldives had never been a democracy and that presently, the country was at a delicate crossroads where a wrong turn could end up throwing the entire democratisation process in chaos.

“Do we want the country to move back into a subsistence economy?” Mujthaba asked listeners. “Do we want a strong man to emerge to finally control the situation and install a military dictatorship or an Iranian style theocracy or a Saudi type kingdom? If the answer is no, the state radio and TV must become liberal and neutral in reporting news and facilitate public debate on various issues.”

In addition to a neutral media Mujthaba also said that, “the politicians in power must stop trying to cling onto the power and those in the opposition must stop trying to take power. The two must work together to ensure a better life for future generations through a good Constitution.”

According to Mujthaba the present constitution, which took 17 years to construct, is no better than the one that came before it as government regulations and practices and acts of Majlis can still be changed “whimsically”.

“I learnt more about what was wrong with the country that I was born in and I call home in the one year and nine months that I was in the Commission than I did my entire life,” Mujthaba added.

He went on to say that he had been specifically disturbed over the fact that the Human Rights Commission received media coverage only when one of its members resigned on grounds that the Commission was not functioning in accordance with the Constitution and Islamic Sharia.

“The state media gave no assistance in the dissemination of information on human rights,” said Mujthaba.

He said that for the sake of the entire country the media need to start focusing on serious issues, such as human rights abuses, and need to report them objectively.

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