KUCHING, June 21 — The Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry is working towards achieving the target of 30 million tourist arrivals that will generate around RM100 billion in income under the Visit Malaysia 2020 campaign, its minister Datuk Mohamaddin Ketapi said today.

He said there was no reason the target cannot be achieved as in the first quarter of this year, with Malaysia already registering 6.7 million visitor arrivals or an increase by 2.7 per cent when compared to the same corresponding period of last year.

He said about 6.5 million visitors were registered in the first quarter of last year.

"In terms of tourist expenditure, Malaysia also has a positive growth of 16.9 per cent for the first quarter of this year,” he said at the launch of the Tourism Infrastructure Fund here.

Mohamaddin said the federal government has invested significantly to develop the tourism sector over the years, adding that most of the tourist destinations in Malaysia, especially in the urban areas, have good tourism infrastructure.

On the Tourism Infrastructure Fund, he said it is to provide financial assistance to existing and new companies dealing with or are involved in tourism-related activities and services.

He said the federal government has allocated RM1 billion through the infrastructure fund, adding that the facility is available through December 31, 2020 or until the fund has been fully utilised.

He added the fund is available to all tourism infrastructure projects such as projects that contribute to the development of the tourism industry and not just limited to hotel, convention centre, facilities related to education, medical or agro-tourism.

"I hope more industry operators will take advantage of the financing facility with a subsidised interest rate provided by Bank Pembangunan Malaysia to create and innovate more tourism products,” he said, adding that this will help to attract more overseas visitors to come to and experience Malaysia.

Mohamaddin said the Visit Malaysia 2020 campaign, to be rolled out early next year, will help the country to achieve its long-term goals in both tourist arrivals and tourism income.