Himalayan News Service

Yangon, January 2:

Myanmar is encouraging foreign entrepreneurs to make investment in restaurant business to help promote its hotels and tourism industry, reports Xinhua.The ministry of hotels and tourism said that there were few foreign-investment restaurants in Myanmar.

However there have been plenty of local restaurants with the availability of foreign food emerging since 1996 when the country first introduced the ‘Visit Myanmar Year’.

Statistics, provided by the government, show that there were restaurants in Myanmar offering a variety of cuisine such as Chinese, Thai, European, French, Italian, Indian,Korean, Japanese and Singaporean as well as Myanmar traditional ones.

Other figures show that contracted foreign investment in the sector of hotels and tourism has amounted to $1.06 billion since 1988. Of these, foreign investments in hotel projects amounted to over $580 million. The tourist arrivals in Myanmar stood at 269,205 during the fiscal year 2003-04, according to the statistics.