KARACHI (May 28 2005): Federal Minister for Tourism Dr Ghazi Gulab Jamal said that all the paper work had been completed to privatise the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) soon. Talking to newsmen at the Expo Centre Karachi here on Friday, the minister said that the government would advertise the PTDC transaction in newspapers and media shortly to invite the interested parties in it. Dr Ghazi Gulab said that the privatisation of the PTDC would help promote the tourism sector in the country, which has immense potential and is a big source of livelihood of many people.

The minister described the steady progress in this sector encouraging and revealed that it has earned 186 million dollars so far in this year as compared to 135 million dollars recorded last year.

The government would act as a facilitator to promote this sector, while the private sector would invest for its development.

Regarding the development of tourist sites, he held that first the step should be taken at local level to make the sites attractive for local as well as foreign tourists.

For instance, he maintained, if the Karachi beach is developed first at local level then it could be converted into a national and international level in the second phase.

Later, speaking at the inaugural ceremony 2nd "Holiday and Travel Mart" exhibition, Ghazi Jamal said that the government would encourage public-private partnership to boost the tourism sector.

The three-day exhibition has been organised with the support of Ministry of Tourism, PTDC and the Chartered Institute of Transport.

The government's job is to facilitate the private sector, interested in development of tourism and would be extending all the possible help in this regard, Ghazi assured.

He disclosed that as a major step to undertake the publicity campaigns, new documentaries and brochures would be prepared about the potential tourist sites because the existing ones are too old to project the potential of the country in real sense as these were made in 80s.

On construction of five-star hotels, the minister suggested that instead of constructing such a expensive and luxurious hotels, the focus should be on building two or three stars hotel as majority population of country is middle class and could only afford middle type hotels at tourism sites.

He asserted that true picture of the country should be projected and added that in this regard the media can play a key role to present the real face of country, distorted by false reporting by international media.

Terming the holding of exhibition a welcome sign, he hoped that it would help achieve the targets in tourism sector, however, he deplored that non-participation of PIA in the exhibition is unfortunate.

However, he said that in the next exhibition, the participation of national flag carrier would be made sure.

Earlier, the minister went around the exhibition hall and inspected stalls of various sectors of the tourism industry such as airlines, travel agents, tour operators and others.