While hard-selling Malaysia as a valuable trading and investment partner in missions she leads to key markets around the world, Minister of International Trade and Industry Rafidah Aziz consistently makes it a point to "sell" the country's virtues as a holiday destination.

And she did that again this week as she leads a similar mission to Shanghai, China's largest city of 17 million people.

With the government mobilising all resources and sparing no efforts to aggressively market VMY '07, Rafidah dangled the tourism carrot by calling on newly-married couples in China to spend their honeymoon in Malaysia via attractive holiday packages.

According to a Bernama report, the minister highlighted the attractive tour packages while lauding the many holiday spots Malaysia has to offer at a trade and investment seminar at Shanghai hotel yesterday.

They included packages from Shanghai to Langkawi, Pangkor Island, Penang and Genting Highlands, places that promise a romantic getaway for them.

Unique experience

Addressing some 500 seminar participants, including tour and travel agents, Rafidah said: "Malaysia is an attractive and cost-competitive destination for tourists and its multi-racial and multi-cultural population offers a unique experience for tourists."

"This year, Malaysia celebrates its 50th year of independence and many special events are being held nationwide including the Malaysia International Aerospace Exhibition from June to August, the Penang International Dragon Boat festival in June and the Rainforest World Music Festival in July," she said.

The minister whose mission includes stops in Beijing and Guangzhou next week, also told Chinese citizens that Malaysia was a shopping paradise as they would find products competitively priced.

"The whole country is "duty-free" especially for items such as cameras, fountain pens, watches, perfumes, cosmetic products, sports wears and equipment, chocolates, jewellery, computers and musical instruments, she said.

Rafidah said there were 439,290 tourist arrivals last year from China, making it the largest source of tourist arrivals to Malaysia outside Asean after Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Brunei.

In January and February alone, Malaysia recorded 117,939 tourist arrivals from China, helped also by Malaysia being easily accessible from China as Malaysia Airlines (MAS) provides direct flights daily from Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.

There were also daily flights to KL by other airlines from other major cities in China such as Chengdu, Kunming and Nanjing.

7,000 Chinese students

The minister said economic and cultural ties between Malaysia and China have grown tremendously over the years, spurred by the boom in tourism and education industries.

"Malaysia has developed a good reputation as a centre for cost-competitive higher education," she said.

Currently, there are more than 7,000 Chinese students pursuing their education in various private colleges, universities and branch campuses of foreign universities in Malaysia.

The minister also promoted "Malaysia My Second Home" programme in which some 11,000 foreign nationals have participated, of whom 1,800 are Chinese citizens.