New Delhi: With light installations and #Kashmir signs put up along the Jhelum River Front, the city of Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir is set to host the third G20 tourism meeting between 22 and 24 May.
This comes amid Pakistan’s push among Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) to boycott the event and China’s opposition to holding such meetings in “disputed areas”.
This is the first international event being hosted by J&K since it became a Union Territory in 2019 after Article 370 was scrapped.
About 60 delegates are expected to attend but major G20 members, who are also a part of the OIC, such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia, have not registered for the event.
It also isn’t clear whether Indonesia, which served as G20 president last year, will send a representative to the Srinagar meet. Earlier this month, Indonesia’s ambassador to India Ina Krishnamurti said Jakarta was yet to take a decision.
Sources in the G20 Secretariat and the Indian tourism industry told ThePrint that though government officials from Turkey and Saudi Arabia are unlikely to travel to Srinagar, representatives from trade bodies in these countries are expected to attend.
Turkey notably did not attend the G20 Finance Ministers’ Meeting in Bengaluru earlier this year, though it did make a presence at the foreign ministers’ track in Delhi shortly after.
China, which boycotted a G20 meeting in Arunachal Pradesh earlier this year, confirmed that it will not attend the upcoming event in Srinagar.
Apart from G20 members, special invitee guest countries, some of whom are also OIC members like Bangladesh and UAE, are expected to be present in Srinagar. Recent years have also seen a slew of investments from the UAE into J&K, making it a key foreign player in the development of the Union Territory.
“The meeting in Srinagar is expected to boost tourism, create economic benefits, generate employment for locals and make the region a stable destination for investment,” Jyoti Mayal, president of Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI), told ThePrint.
Meeting deliverables
J&K will be the third to host the G20 tourism meeting. The second was hosted in Siliguri, West Bengal, and the first in Rann of Kutch, Gujarat.
The meeting in Srinagar will focus on two key deliverables — the Goa Roadmap for Tourism as a vehicle for achieving sustainable development goals and the G20 Tourism Ministers’ Declaration.
This is arguably the most significant meeting on the G20 tourism track before the final tourism meeting takes place in Goa in June where the roadmap will be finalised and will set the stage for the tourism ministers’ communique shortly after.
Greening of the tourism sector, digitisation of tourism data and processes, nurturing tourism MSMEs and rethinking the strategic management of destinations are expected to be top issues for the upcoming meeting, according to a statement issued by the Indian tourism ministry.
Two side events will also take place including one with a focus on Indian film and cinema. Tourism industry leaders hope the meeting will assuage security concerns about the Kashmir Valley.
Heavy security has been deployed in J&K ahead of the meet, including drills by navy commandos on Dal Lake and posting of special operations groups.
Earlier this week, India’s mission to Geneva called the remarks of the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, Fernand de Varennes, on the G20 meet in Srinagar “baseless and unwanted”.
Varennes had tweeted that holding a G20 meeting in J&K was lending support to attempts by India to normalise its repression of the rights of Kashmiri Muslims and minorities.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)