KUCHING,June 24 2026: Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Minister Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah said that “tourism” needs to be re-examined to be in line with the principles and understandings agreed upon during the formation of Malaysia in 1963.
He said that the state government has long time ago wanted “tourism” be placed under the Concurrent List of the Federal Constitution.
He said this is enable the power and responsibilities related to the sector to be shared between the Federal and State governments.
He recalled that “tourism” was never specifically mentioned in the division of power during the formation of Malaysia under the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63).
He said that was why he had long proposed that powers related to tourism be handed back to Sarawak, but stressed that the state government had never demanded full control over the sector.
“That is why I have been trying to ask for the tourism power to be handed back but we are not greedy because we have discussed it at the state cabinet level and we do not want tourism to be 100 percent under the state government.
“We want to share, that is why we want tourism to be included in what we call the Concurrent List, which means matters shared between the federal and state governments,” he said at a press conference after the inauguration of the ‘BIMP-EAGA Tourism Exchange (BETX) 2026’ here today.
He added that based on legal principles, matters not contained in the Federal List, State List or Concurrent List should be considered as matters under the Residual List which are under the jurisdiction of the state government, where tourism is under the Residual List.
Karim explained that the tourism sector has great potential to contribute to the economic growth of the country and states, hence the power-sharing approach is more appropriate than control by one party alone.
On anothermatter, Karim called for regional cooperation under the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) be strengthened through the establishment of regional offices in each country involved to ensure that the implementation of the development and economic agenda can be driven more effectively.
He said the move could increase the effectiveness of the implementation of the BIMP-EAGA initiative which has been established since 1994.
He said BIMP-EAGA can examine the success of the Sarawak Singapore Trade and Tourism Office (STATOS) model which has successfully strengthened Sarawak's trade and tourism relations with foreign countries.
"That's why sometimes I feel that BIMP-EAGA also needs to look at and study how STATOS has developed.
"If from 1994 until now there has still been no regional office, think about how to establish a regional office like in Davao City and other areas.
“STATOS is growing rapidly, and even faster at achieving success,” he said.
He added that the positive developments achieved by STATOS showed that the approach was able to accelerate Sarawak’s trade, investment and tourism promotion efforts abroad.
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