The Business Center Corporation (BCC) has launched a Creative Economy Fund to provide financial assistance to artists.

The fund will recognize the societal impact of creative and artistic endeavours such as filmmaking, music production and fashion design, as well as literature and handicrafts, and will provide financial assistance to local artists and small businesses.

"The Creative Economy Fund is designed to provide sustainable financial support to local artists. Along with that, the fund will introduce flexible and innovative financing schemes targeting creative projects," the BCC said.

BCC said financial support this year will focus on filmmaking, music production, art and craft work and ongoing projects by content creators in various fields.

Applications for financial assistance under the scheme will be opened on October 10. Financial assistance between MVR 50,000 and MVR 300,000 will be provided from the fund.

The Creator Economy Fund was introduced as a revenue-based funding scheme. The financing scheme provides fixed loan amounts and repayments can be made depending on the revenue.

Meanwhile at a press conference yesterday, Economic Minister Mohamed Saeed said the government was working with an international company to produce a movie to promote Maldives.

“We sent a letter to the Finding Nemo movie maker, the story writer, and then as part of that work we got the chance to work with a Hollywood startup company and they have visited Maldives and met some people. We hope this work will be fruitful," Saeed said.

He further said the government was preparing to send key documents to PayPal and submit a proposal to YouTube.

Saeed said the work is progressing according to the targeted schedule and cross-border transactions with PayPal will be started very soon.

He added that a meeting will be held with YouTube on Thursday to present a proposal to solve the difficulties faced by the people of Maldives to monetize the platform.