BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, March 19 (Xinhua) -- Brunei is considering to end the year-long free museum welfare and levy an entrance fee for local museums, with the aim to increase the country's revenue.
Brunei is looking for optimized proposals to increase the revenues for government and public-private partnerships (PPP), Haji Aminuddin, the sultanate's Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports was quoted as saying by local daily the Borneo Bulletin on Monday.
"Any initiative to impose a fee for visitors to museums would be for the country's revenue. This proposal is still under discussion with relevant agencies," he said.
Responding to Legislative Council (LegCo) member's question on the need to impose an entry fee for the Royal Regalia Museum, which is a must-visit for international tourists, the minister said that if every visitor was charged 5 Brunei dollars (3.8 U.S.dollars) as entry fee, "it will translate to more than 500,000 Brunei dollars a year and this can contribute to the ministry's revenue," he added.
