Hajj Corporation to commence halal tourism in Maafushi

Maldives Hajj Corporation’s Managing Director Mohamed Shakeel has revealed that the Corporation was undertaking preparations to commence halal tourism in K. Maafushi.

Central Fuvahmulah MP Ali Fazadh questioned Hajj Corporation regarding the efforts being undertaken to facilitate cheaper Hajj arrangements for the public during Wednesday’s Government Oversight Committee.

In response, Shakeel said the Hajj Corporation presently escorts pilgrims to Hajj at a loss. The current price for Hajj was fixed in 2013 at MVR 69,965. He stresses the hike in the prices of goods, airline tickets and accommodation among other things.

“On an average, some MVR 100,000 is incurred for each pilgrim,” he added.

He detailed that Hajj Corporation spends an additional MVR 30 million if escorting 3,000 pilgrims to Hajj. Henceforth, he underscored the need to transform Hajj Corporation into a company that profits in order to reduce the price of Hajj.

In this trajectory, he revealed the company’s decision to invest in business with light risks for which efforts are currently being undertaken.

“All transactions related to Hajj have to be conducted with foreign parties and subsequently, they are all conducted in foreign currency. Thus, the biggest difficulty we presently face is in acquiring foreign currency,” he detailed.

To resolve the issue, Shakeel said Hajj Corporation is undertaking efforts to develop a guesthouse in Maafushi and introduce halal tourism to the island, which will establish an inflow of foreign currency into the company.

He said the company has proposed to form a subsidiary company with Maafushi Council as part of these efforts. He added that a large land plot has already been allocated from Maafushi for this purpose.

“An investor has already approached us regarding this. We invested in this area because we believe this to be a light risk yet a good source to earn foreign currency as Maafushi is an island where tourism is already well-established,” he said.

Notably, Hajj Corporation is already undertaking efforts to develop a luxury apartment complex in Hulhumale’. As per Shakeel, the rendering of the complex is presently underway and the project is expected to be awarded to a contractor within the next two to three months.

The current adminstration had earlier decided to allocate all Hajj quotas received by the Maldives to the state-owned Maldives Hajj Corporation without any allocations to private groups.

However, Islamic Minister Dr. Shaheem Ali Saeed recently revealed that the government is considering allocating opportunities to escort pilgrims for private groups if the Maldives receives additional Hajj quotas.