ACC Secretary-General Met with Minister of Primary Resources and Tourism of Brunei

On 12 August 2017, H.E. Mme. Yang Xiuping, Secretary-General of ASEAN-China Centre (ACC) paid a courtesy call on The Honorable Dato Haji Ali Apong, Minister of Primary Resources and Tourism of Brunei. Dr. Abd Manaf Metussin, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry and Ms. Hong Mee Jien, Deputy Director of General Affairs and Coordination Division of ACC attended the meeting.

Secretary-General Yang Xiuping appreciated the work of the Ministry of Primary Resources and Tourism in promoting tourism cooperation between China and Brunei as well as China and ASEAN. She said that the tourism exchanges between China and ASEAN have become closer and closer. The number of bilateral visits between ASEAN and China is close to a record high of 31.8 million in 2016. There are more than 2,700 flights between ASEAN countries and China each week. As this year marks the 50th anniversary of ASEAN and the Year of ASEAN-China Tourism Cooperation, ACC actively sets up cooperative platforms for the tourism organizations of both sides to promote the tourism resources in all channels. ACC is working with Beijing TV on tourism documentary shooting programme "Hi! ASEAN" in 10 ASEAN countries. ACC held the ASEAN-China Quality and Sustainable Tourism Development Conference and ASEAN Photo Exhibition. ACC translated and published the Chinese edition of 50 Golden

Trails of ASEAN countries and organized the mutual visits of mainstream media of ASEAN and China. During the 10th China-ASEAN Education Cooperation Week (CAECW) recently held, ACC, as the co-organizer, pushed forward to set up China-ASEAN Tourism Education Alliance. Furthermore, ACC would hold China-ASEAN Tourism Festival and China-ASEAN Ecotourism Development Seminar and so on. ACC would like to invite Brunei to join these activities.

Minister Dato Haji Ali Apong highly praised the efforts made by ACC in promoting ASEAN-China tourism cooperation. He said that China is Brunei’s second largest tourist resource country. Recently, China and Brunei have established periodical chartered flights from Kunming and Nanning to Brunei which contributed to the increase in number of Chinese tourists. He hoped that the same chartered flights could be opened to other Chinese cities in the future. Furthermore, Brunei and China have good exchanges and cooperation in the fields of hybrid rice, fishery and halal food which have fruitful achievements. He indicated that Brunei would like to work together with China to unceasingly innovate new patterns and promote relative cooperation for more achievements. He hoped that ACC could continuously make efforts for the exchanges and friendship between China and Brunei.