President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev has participated in a presentation of a programme for the further development of Bukhara Region's tourism potential. This presentation took place in the Ark of Bukhara fortress. 

It is envisaged to spend 18.5 billion soms on measures to ensure tourists' security, to develop such types of tourism as religious tourism, ecotourism, medical tourism, business tourism, agritourism, cultural tourism, industrial tourism, culinary tourism and sports tourism, to expand cooperation with the UNWTO and prestigious international and national tourism organizations, to rapidly develop tourism industry facilities, to build road-transport and engineering-communication infrastructure and renovate such existing infrastructure. 

The country's President gave necessary instructions to improve the system of training specialists for the tourism sector and regularly upgrading their qualifications. 

It is today's requirement to make competitive tourism products and services and to work out a strategy for promoting them on internal and external markets. 

Bukhara is called an ancient and eternal city for a good reason. There are ancient shrines and artefacts here, and Uzbeks' unique values and incomparable traditions have been observed here for centuries. Foreigners' interest and that of historians in these have always been high. This should be put to good use. 

Necessary instructions were given to build a small ring road going round Bukhara's ancient shrines, to create marble pavements, to modernize the system of street lighting, to build hotels and to plant trees and flowers around them and to create all conveniences and opportunities for local and foreign investors. 

The President inspected the Bukhara history museum construction project. 

This museum is to be built in an area of 1.2 hectares, and 68.3 billion soms of budgetary funds are to be allocated for this construction project. Once the museum is built and put into use, rare exhibits being kept in the Ark fortress will be moved there. More than 60 jobs will be created. 

The necessary instructions were given to equip the museum to world standards and to ensure security for visitors there. 

President Shavkat Mirziyoyev examined the current state of cultural heritage sites and projects for their preservation. 

There are 660 cultural heritage sites in Bukhara. Most of them are examples of ancient architecture, monumental works of art and archaeological sites. 

Instructions on the maintenance of the cultural heritage sites were given to specialists of this sphere. 

UzA