Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- According to the Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan No.5326 from 08.02.2018 for the citizens of 7 countries, including Singapore, was established a visa-free regime for entry into Uzbekistan for up to 30 days.

In this regard, the Embassy of Uzbekistan in Singapore in 2018 implemented a number of measures aimed to increase the number of Singapore tourists to Uzbekistan. Thus, the Embassy took part in the two largest tourism exhibitions of the National Association of Travel Agents of Singapore (NATAS) in March and August 2018, a Road-show and B2B meetings were organized with the participation of tour operators of Uzbekistan and Singapore in May 2018 and the signing of the Cooperation Agreement between the State Committee for Tourism Development and Singapore company “S.E.A. Business Center Pte Ltd”, to establish the Uzbekistan-Singapore Tourism Centre in Singapore.

On 19 February, 2019 the Embassy of the Republic of Uzbekistan in Singapore held the opening ceremony of this Centre in Singapore. The event was attended by Ambassador of Singapore in Uzbekistan (with residence in Singapore) Zulkifli Baharudin, representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Enterprise Singapore, National University of Singapore (NUS), representatives of academic, cultural, humanitarian, business spheres, mass media and “Uzbekistan Airways”.

During his speech, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Uzbekistan to Singapore H.E. Mr. Kakhramon Shakirov noted that in accordance with the measures taken by the Head of State and the Government, as well as the efforts of the Embassy, it was possible to triple the number of tourists from Singapore to Uzbekistan in 2018 – from 611 in 2017 to 1842 people. In addition, it was noted that the Embassy is actively promoting the tourism potential of Uzbekistan, spreading information about the rich history, culture and traditions of our country.

The Ambassador of Singapore in Uzbekistan (with residence in Singapore) Zulkifli Baharudin emphasized that Uzbekistan has a significant tourism potential and is an unexplored market for both tourists and businessmen of Singapore. In his opinion, the establishment of such a Tourism Centre will provide additional opportunities to provide reliable and complete information about the tourist attractiveness of the country.

Head of “S.E.A. Business Center Pte Ltd” and the Uzbekistan-Singapore Tourism Centre Rudy Fang during his presentation mentioned that he was very proud that the Government of Uzbekistan assured high confidence in his company in creating this Centre. According to R.Fang, his main goal is to assist in promoting the tourism brand of Uzbekistan not only in Singapore, but also in Southeast Asia countries and to increase the number of foreign tourists to Uzbekistan.

In addition, a number of representatives of the tourism industry shared their opinions.

Abdul Rakhim, Director of “TM Fouzy Travel” mentioned, that he is very excited about Uzbekistan-Singapore tourism center. “We were thinking quite long about getting more tourists from Uzbekistan.  We were one of the pioneers of promoting of Uzbekistan for couple of years started 3-4 years ago. Now with this launch I think will give is the support to increase the number to create more awareness to muslim market to travel to Uzbekistan”.

Fazal Bahardeen, CEO of Crescent Rating and Halal Trip, was very pleased to be on the opening of Uzbekistan-Singapore tourism center. “I had a pleasure visiting Uzbekistan last October and I am really believe that Uzbekistan has huge opportunity as a tourism destination especially for Muslim travelers because it has so much of Islamic history at the places like Samarkand, Bukhara”.

He believes that taking this message across to muslim market and there will be huge interest to visit Uzbekistan. He think that this is good start to have tourism center in Singapore because it is very close to Malaysia and Indonesia which are big outbound markets for muslim tourism point of view.

JQ, CEO of Dynamic Focus International. “What I found during this launching of this Uzbekistan-Singapore tourism centre that you should be high potentially industry especially on muslim market. I am looking forward for collaboration and more opportunities to introduce muslim travel after they perfrom their Khadj, pilgrimage to travel to Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan has a lot of historical to share so my future hope is the achieve fruitful collaboration between Uzbekistan and Singaporean community.

Nomita Dhar, editor-in-chief at “Sun Media Private Limited”. “It is a great honour to be at this function today and I congratulate the Embassy of Uzbekistan in Singapore for launching very important and exciting initiative of Uzbekistan-Singapore Tourism Centre. Uzbekistan is a hidden gem and I think this initiative is going to open many many doors and as Ambassador said earlier that last year it was a huge increase in a number of tourist who visited Uzbekistan. With this initiative I am very sure that it will increase rapidly and I wish all the players come together and work in close coordination to get more Singaporeans. Singaporeans must know that this is very exiting destination with a lot of UNESCO World Heritage cites, excellent food and beautiful, warm and hospitable people. So they must to catch the next flight and go to Uzbekistan”.             

Rudy Fang from Uzbekistan-Singapore tourism center was very honoured and thankful to the Government of Uzbekistan for the Agrement he has signed with the State Committee for Tourism Development. “We are going to set up Uzbekistan-Singapore tourism center which main goal is to promote Uzbekistan and tourism. We will bring more tourist from Singapore and neighboring countries who will fly to Uzbekistan through Singapore. We think that this opportunity to promote Uzbekistan and bring more tourist is great as Uzbekistan is still not well known to many people. If we do marketing and promotion correctly we are very sure that we will succeed. So we hope that by working by activities in Uzbekistan-Singapore tourism center we would be able to support many parties, travel agents, hotel, restaurants, etc in Uzbekistan to get more businesses”. 

Seldan Lim, who is writing for Expedia, found Uzbekistan-Singapore tourism centre as a fantastic place because of its is huge cultural experiences for the facility and exotic place. “Hopefully as we know more and more about this country we can make a booking and visit a country very soon”.