Minister of Tourism Moosa Zameer has said that foreign companies investing in the tourism sector have increased significantly within the past two years.
During an interview with Financial Time's fDi Intelligence magazine, The Tourism Minister noted that the Maldives navigated through global financial crises and political instability while maintaining tourism growth and leading the world in environmental innovation.
During the interview, Minister Zameer highlighted on the mega development project conducted to upgrade airports across the country, citing that close to USD 1 billion is being invested in these projects as part of government's strategy to increase tourist arrivals and enhance the industry. He added that in the past two years Maldives has seen many international investors.
Answering a question about balancing the development of the industry with environmental conservation, Minister Zameer noted that the government has been very cautious in selecting islands to develop resorts.
“In the past two years we’ve seen many international investors coming in. In fact, we’ve slowed down leasing islands for tourism because we don’t want the capacity to increase overnight as tourism arrivals have to match it. That is why we are doing special work on marketing as well. Additionally, many structural changes have been made and debt-to-GDP ratios have improved tremendously over the past three years” Minister Zameer said.
During the Interview with Natasha Turak of fDi Intelligence magazine, the Tourism Minister highlighted that the investor confidence is high in Maldives.