Voice of Maldives Islands

 Maldivian work force has two main concerns. That is:- -They have to leave their family and come to Male’ in search of jobs, thereby creating lot of social and other problems -Tourism industry benefits a few people and not the majority of the population. In order to address the above problems, islands were leased to build resorts in number of atolls and MTDC was formed to provide an opportunity for majority of the population, a way to take ownership of resorts and provide a direct income source. The question is, is MTDC the right formula to address the above complaints? People started to have doubts after firing of two experienced staff from Herethere Resort. Imagine a different scenario. What if some of the islands to build resorts (or even other investments like fisheries and agriculture) were given to the atoll itself? (It is a known fact that many people from Addu work in tourism industry at various levels. Consequently, Addu atoll has a pool of experienced and skill

Often we are bombarded with messages stating, we do not have any natural resources and therefore we are poor. Just because we do not have oil does not mean we lack natural resources to move our economy forward. When you think of it, the 1000 more islands are the natural resources we have. We are using less than 150 islands for industrial purposes. The rest is untouched and unused. Tourism has shown that each island can be turned into multi million dollar cash generating investments. However, the problem is policy makers seems unable to think beyond tourism. Policies in assigning islands for industrial purposes need to be reviewed and prevent over concentration on tourism in a single atoll. Within the atolls (including Kaafu and other atolls that has high concentration of tourism), islands can be leased to fisheries, agriculture, education, health, and many more other industries and make them easily accessible for people to go for jobs or to acquire goods and services. Build

We may be more than 1000 year old country but, we do not have the backbone needed for any economic growth; that is a Nationwide Affordable Transport system. We do not have such a system, in spite of having a government Ministry named after transport. Being a small island state, we need two things. -Access to bigger markets -Mobility of labor and resources. We cannot have those without, a nation wide affordable transport mechanism and port (air or sea) facilities. Absence of such a mechanism connecting islands that have hospitals or schools in an atoll, is one of the main reason that lead to congestion in Male’ area. It is cheaper to travel to Male’ than to the nearest island in your atoll. Furthermore, it also makes traveling by air doubly expensive. Setting up airports without a ferry system does not make good economic sense. Within the atolls they do not travel, they do not talk and they do not exchange goods and services. Consequently, cash is generated in Male’ and ends