MULTI-LANGUAGE SIGNBOARDS ONLY AT CERTAIN LOCATIONS

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 6 (Bernama) -- The Tourism Ministry is responsible for putting up signboards in several languages only at certain locations, its Minister, Azalina Othman Said told the Lower House of Parliament Thursday.

She said the signboards were put up for the benefit of foreign tourists,
who could also obtain information on places of interests in the country from
pamphlets and brochures, written in several languages, prepared by the ministry.

Despite the use of other languages, she said, Malay was still the main
language of reference.

"The suggestion to have multi-language signboards for roads and names
of places is a good effort which should be done to get more tourists to
Malaysia," she said in response to a question pertaining to a suggestion to have
multi-language signboards for roads and names of places for tourists'
benefit.

In referring to statistics on the arrival of tourists from West Asian
countries, who are said to have huge buying power and come to Malaysia for
shopping, Azalina said it would be apt to have road signs and names of places
written in Arabic.

She said 99,032 tourists from several West Asian countries visited Malaysia
as of June this year.

However, Azalina said the putting up of road signboards was the
jurisdiction of the state government and the municipal councils.