Sports facilities currently under construction are part of the Government's thrust to diversify the economy, Sports Minster Anil Roberts said yesterday.
"Sports is one way to diversify the economy. These facilties are made to the highest international standards. Yesterday we had the pleasure of hosting the USA swimming team. The manager of the USA Olympic swimming team would love to make T&T the training base for Olympics 2016. They took a tour of local facilities of the aquatic centre and about $49.6 million have already gone in to the site," he said.
Speaking yesterday at the signing of agreements for the development of six sporting facilities and the Couva Children's Hospital project, Roberts added: "Every time we increase our tourist arrivals by 10,000 visitors by an average of five days we increase the GDP by $120 million. When these facilties are finished by 2015, we will want to increase our arrivals by sports tourism to 50,000 a year."