In his joint statement with Prayut, Duterte said: “We reaffirmed a long-standing friendship and renewed common commitment to bring our countries and peoples closer in greater cooperation.”
The Philippines President arrived in Bangkok late Monday evening for a two-day official visit.
With the Philippines currently holding the ASEAN chairmanship, Duterte said both countries were exerting efforts to make the association “more people-oriented and people centered”.
This meant harnessing the tourism sector for national and regional development, with the Philippines pushing for activities such as promotion of joint tourism destinations.
Philippine Tourism secretary Wanda Teo signed the implementing Program of Tourism Cooperation 2017-2022 with Thai Tourism and Sports Minister Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul.
The program aims to revive the 23-year old tourism cooperation agreement between the two nations, dating back to a tourism memorandum of agreement signed on March 24, 1993.
The Tourism department under the Duterte administration already has cooperation agreements with China, Cambodia, and Turkey.
Full story at CNN Philippines.
Meanwhile, a new report by the World Travel & Tourism Council predicts that Thailand’s travel & tourism sector will be the world’s 10th-fastest-growing over the next decade, with an average growth rate of 6.5% per annum.
It grew by nearly 11% in 2016 and contributed Bt2.9 trillion to Thailand’s gross domestic product, which was 20.6% of total GDP. Additionally, the sector supported more than 15% of total employment last year, for a total of 5.7 million jobs.
Full story at The Nation.
No comments:
Post a Comment