Eagerly waiting for things going back to normal and to welcome visitors once more

We are eager to see things back to normal and to once again welcome visitors coming back to visit the lovely tourist attractions which include the historical Carpenter Street. As I have mentioned to our media friends during our walk about held this morning, we would love to see Carpenter Street to become a place just for pedestrians, something like a boulevard, while loading and unloading of goods can only take place during certain hours of the day. The street can also be converted into a dedicated walking trail with traffic only allowed to pass through during certain hours of the day.

I expressed hope for such proposal to become a reality soon, where the beautoful roofing similar to the one at the nearby India Street could be constructed at Carpenter Street. This can provide shade for tourists and locals like from the weather.

We gave the thumbs up to the ‘Kuching Old Bazaar’ project at Carpenter Street which was headed by Kuching Old Market Community Association and it was set out to preserve the history, traditions and culture of our city.

As part of the project, there is a historical book on our Kuching Old Bazaar as well as four tourism brochures, five promotional videos, 40 information plaques with a scannable QR code, a dedicated website, the setting up of profile pages on social media platforms and street arts presentation.

Our Kuching Old Bazaar was one of the first trading commercial centres and oldest bazaars in Sarawak. The area has witnessed many changes over the past 200 years of its history and it is indeed an important community in Sarawa. I think the Kuching Old Bazaar project will be a refreshing tourism product in our city, apart from the Intercultural Mooncake Festival and the three spectacular Goddess Parades from the two temples located along the street, namely Hiang Thian Siang Ti Temple and Hong San Si Temple.

I have also remarked that the Kuching Old Bazaar brand should be expanded to include other areas in Padungan and India Street, as these places could be considered as part of the old Kuching heritage. I hope the Kuching Old Bazaar would one day be able to be on par or to rival the brand of Singapore’s Chinatown, Penang’s Georgetown and Malacca’s Jonker Walk.

Apart from that, I have suggested for a unit should be set up to look after sunset industries that were synonymous with Kuching’s history, such as supporting the boat operators along Sarawak River at our famous Waterfront to sustain their business going forward.

As such, the state government is also planning to establish a craft centre in Kuching to serve as an avenue to promote local craft products and to draft a new Sarawak Craft Council Ordinance to further develop the state craft industry.