PUTRAJAYA: There are no plans to allocate government funds for "exclusive deals" with foreign artists so they will only hold concerts in Malaysia and not other countries regionally, says Fahmi Fadzil.
The Communications Minister said any such deals would be a commercial venture between private companies and the government's only role is to approve applications for concerts.
"Most of these exclusive concert events are organised and agreed upon between private companies that sign contracts with artists to perform in a single country regionally.
"For example, British rock band Muse's exclusive concert in Malaysia in July was a result of discussions only between organisers as a form of marketing to attract and promote the event," he said.
Fahmi said that his ministry would focus only on simplifying the process for approval of concert applications as there were complaints that the process was too slow.
"Any decision to allocate funding to bring in foreign artists is entirely up to the Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry.
"I plan to hold discussions with its minister Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing later on this topic," he said at a press conference here on Tuesday (Feb 20).
This comes after international media recently reported Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin as claiming that popular American singer Taylor Swift was offered subsidies of up to US$2mil (RM9.56mil) to US$3mil (RM14.34mil) by the Singapore government to perform exclusively in the island nation and not other countries in the region.
Taylor Swift is set to perform to a fully packed 55,000-seat Singapore National Stadium for six days from March 2 to 4 and from March 7 to 9.
