AKIPRESS.COM - ADB stands ready to work together with CAREC member countries and other development partners to promote a regional approach for sustainable tourism development, ADB Vice President Shixin Chen said at the CAREC High-Level Session during the ADB Annual General Meeting on May 1 in Nadi, Fiji.

CAREC countries enjoy a vast range of natural and cultural endowments to attract visitors from neighboring countries and beyond. Tourist arrivals in the CAREC region, except Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and the People’s Republic China, reached almost 20 million in 2018. This represents an annual growth of about 4.5% over the past five years. Of this, more than half are intra-regional tourism flows and nearly 25% are visitors from the Russian Federation. In the People’s Republic of China, tourist arrivals reached 63.65 million in 2018. Prospects for the next decade look promising, with tourist arrivals in the 8 CAREC countries forecast to reach 31.7 million by 2028, the ADB Vice President said.

“We will increase our efforts to mobilize technical and financial resources to support the development of essential tourism infrastructure, create a conducive environment to attract private tourism investments, and enhance the attraction of the CAREC region as a competitive tourism destination globally," he said.

ADB will approve $2 million technical assistance for supporting the development of a CAREC tourism strategy and a regional investment framework leading to 2030. In addition, we will strive to provide value-adding knowledge and capacity building services to member countries on key aspects of sustainable tourism development, the ADB Vice President said.

The CAREC countries include Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, People's Republic of China (the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region), Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan.