The Youth and Sports Ministry has requested the Ministry of Finance for an allocation of $1.2 million to host next year's Pacific Youth Festival to be held in Suva.

Filipe Bole said the amount would cater for accommodation, symposium venues, meals, transport, support services for the 900 plus regional youths that would converge in Suva next year in July.

Bole added that this would be the biggest gathering of young people in the region and an in-house steering committee has been meeting for the last two months to prepare logistic and lay the groundwork for the setup of a Pacific Youth Festival 2009 National Organizing Committee.

The first meeting of the national organizing committee would convene later this month.