Minister Ahmed Adheeb said that the tourism industry will not earn the expected revenue for the year which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had also pointed out. “The expected amount from lease rent will not be acquired within the year. This is about MVR500 million. We are looking for ways to compensate for the loss. Discussions for the issue will start within next week,” Adeeb said. The Minister said that the IMF had proposed to increase the Tourism Goods and Services Tax (TGST) charged from the tourism industry to 12 percent. Adeeb however said that the discussions will not only be held to discuss raising the amount of TGST charged. “The discussions are not to simply discuss increasing the amount of TGST charged from resorts. The government has not decided to increase TGST to 12 percent. The government wants to find out the ways from which the tourism industry can compensate for the amount of predicted loss,” he said. Adeeb expressed confidence that the leading businessmen in the tourism industry will cooperate with the ministry to the fullest extent. Earlier the government had opened applications for resort owners who wish to expand resort infrastructure from the allowed 20 percent to 30 percent to apply by the end of June 2012. Reflecting on the income earned by the Maldives Inland Revenue Authority (MIRA), 32.4 percent is from TGST. TGST and GST contributes 22.5 and 15.1 percent of the income respectively. MVR 76.6 million was acquired as TGST.