Thursday, May 29, 2014

Italian Consul General on Sikkim visit

GANGTOK, 28 May: Italian Consul General in Kolkata, Cesare Bieller is in Gangtok and is expected to meet Tourism Minister Ugen T Gyatso on Thursday with the view to revive century old Sikkim-Italy relationship by promoting adventure tourism in Sikkim. He is here with a team of mountaineers from Italy.
Talking to media persons this afternoon after meeting the Chief Secretary, Rinchen Ongmu, he said Sikkim has a lot of potential in adventure tourism and needs more infrastructural development in this sector. Mr. Bieller informed that the Italian team scaled the Thalung peak in North Sikkim a few days ago.
Italy has taken Sikkim and Meghalaya as its priority states in Northeastern region of India since there is a lot of scope in these two states, said the Italian Consul General. Indigenous food production and habits is unique in both these states which needs to be promoted further in close coordination with the state governments in the near future, he added.
Meghalaya is going to organize the second world indigenous food festival next year to promote tourism in the state and Italy wants to take part in it to promote the food festival, he informed.
Mr. Bieller further said that he is expected to discuss possible cooperation between Sikkim and Italy for indigenous food processing, development of mountaineering and adventure tourism like climbing, trekking and expeditions in peaks of Sikkim with the Tourism Minister, Mr. Gyatso.
There is a lot of enthusiasm amongst Italian tourists to visit Sikkim and Meghalaya, he said further adding that a lot of young people of Sikkim also want to go to Italy especially for education. However, he said that there are some complications in granting visa and expressed hopes to simplify the visa procedure in the coming days.

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