Mayor of the Miri City Council (MCC), Lawrence Lai Yew Son said despite numerous strategies taken over the years by the government and private agencies as well as individuals, Miri City was still relatively unknown to West Malaysians as well as Singaporeans.

"Recently, I attended a government seminar in Singapore and I introduced myself from Miri City and to my disappointment they thought Miri was in Sabah.

"This shows we need to improve the strategies in promoting Miri City and Sarawak in general. It is not good enough to have the many beautiful tourist attractions in Miri if the targeted tourists are not aware of such attractions or worse, where Miri is," he says.

Lawrence said this after launching the 17th edition of the quarterly magazine -'Borneo Talk' at his office in Miri yesterday.

He thanked Bumi Serasi, the publisher of the magazine, for taking a bold move in publishing the magazine that is distributed free of charge.

"With the exposure of Miri City in Borneo Talk that is available in Brunei, Sabah, Kuala Lumpur and MAS Golden Lounges around the world and throughout Sarawak, we are optimistic that we will get the exposure needed to project the many wonderful happenings and tourism potentials here and its surrounding," he added.

He said the multi-ethnic, culture and religious composition of the city made all the achievements in Miri even more impressive.

Editor-in-chief of Borneo Talk, Ivy Pan said the 17th edition of the magazine highlighted the impressive achievements of Miri City this year and other attractions.

They included the five new records created for the Malaysia Book of Records during the City Day and May Fest 2010 celebration and also the City's vision to be a vibrant and green resort city.

"We are indeed very proud to be associated with Miri City and look forward to sharing more interesting and adventure stories of Miri with our readers everywhere.

"As a Sarawak based magazine we have since expanded our coverage to Sabah and also Brunei, which now includes more choices of destinations for visitors to this part of the world. As a quarterly magazine our news and coverage remain very updated and current which gives readers the latest in news on places of interests, eateries and fun outlets in the cities we visit," she stressed.

She said the 17th issue of the glossy, all colour 76-page magazine is currently available at the Kuching airport, major hotels and restaurants in Kuching, Sibu, Bintulu and Miri as well as in Sabah, Brunei, five MPH centres in Semenanjung Malaysia and also at Changi Airport in Singapore.

“We are able to print and distribute the magazine free due to the strong support of the advertisers and the overwhelming response from readers and distributors. We are confident with that trend Sarawak, Miri, Brunei and Sabah will be well known globally,” she said.

The magazine started in 2006 initially with 28 pages that had now expanded to 76 pages and a total of 20,000 copies in each print.

Ivy urged anyone interested in contributing articles for the magazine to contact her at 6082-427423. She assured that all contributors whose articles were published would be paid.

(News from the Borneo Post)