The 20th edition of the Rainforest World Music Festival, will be held from 14 to 16 July 2017.
Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports, Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah said for this year edition, more fringe events will be organised in Kuching City by incorporating eco-friendly and greening initiatives, fashion, arts, music, crafts, and photography.
He said the objective is to bring out whole of Kuching into a festivity mood throughout the Rainforest World Music Festival period.
“The Rainforest WorldMusic Festival is estimated to attract 18,000 audience and 200 international media,” he said in his winding-up speech at the State Legislative Assembly sitting here on Thursday.
According to Karim, events and festival are always th immediate attraction to tourists and visitors and same time generating income to the various service providers in the service sector.
“As such, my ministry with the collaboration of other government agencies and tourism industry players have successfully organized many tourism events that have generated economic spin off to the local economy and able to capture international media intention,” he said.
Karim said the notable international events which have been lined up in 2017 were World Harvest Festival in April, Asean International Film Festival and Awards, which was just concluded last week, followed by Borneo Jazz Festival (May), Rainforest World Music Festival (July), Borneo Interntational Kite Festival (September), Kuching Waterfront Festival which comprises of Sarawak International Dragon Boat Regatta and Sarawak Regatta(November) and many more.
He also said that Asean International Film Festival and Awards (AIFFA) 2017, was held in Kuching from 4 to 6t May 2017, whereby it was attended more than 500 Asean and international delegates and local Sarawakians.
The impact created was tremendous in terms of branding Kuching and Sarawak positively in the Asean region as a filming destination.
“Film is also about business. AIFFA 2017 saw more than RM120.0 million films financing available to pitch for.
This private initiative between AIFFA and SAVAA (Southeast Asia Audio Visual Association) saw many film production companies from Sarawak, Peninsular Malaysia and Asean countries taking part in the pitch. This facility has provided an important solution to film production companies.”
“Our local houses also will be exposed to international standard business pitching exercise. The AIFFA Biz World so set several memorandum of understanding (MOUs) between Sarawak and a China Production House, and between AIFFA and SAVVA.”
This year, he said the 12th edition of the Borneo Jazz has been held on 12 and 13 May 2017 with eight professional bands both international and local, whereby one of the bands featured Sarawakian violinist Nisa Addina and another featured Michael Veerapen, one of the National singer, Sheila Majid’s producer.
The just concluded Borneo Jazz has attracted an attendance of 4000 for the two nights and an early estimation in economic spin-off remained at RM8 million and media mileage of RM10million.
