Like Western countries, Arab countries like Europe have introduced visa facilities among the 6 countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council or GCC. Under this facility, it will be possible to travel to GCC countries with a single visa.
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This facility is compared with the visa facility introduced in Europe's Schengen area. This visa facility will also provide various commercial benefits to the citizens of the countries including travel.
As a result of this facility, the tourism relations of Gulf countries will improve not only among the member countries but also with India. UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimates that 66 percent of India's migrants live in GCC countries.
It was decided to introduce this visa facility in a meeting held in Oman in November last year. At the GCC summit in January this year, the home ministries of the countries were instructed to implement this facility.
It is possible to travel to 26 European countries with a single visa. Compared with that facility, the facility of traveling to 6 GCC countries with a single visa is called Schengen style visa.
UAE Finance Minister Abdullah bin Tauq Al-Marri was the first to compare the GCC's visa facilities to Schengen. Experts say the new initiative will eliminate the need for separate visas for individuals to travel to the six GCC member states and reduce costs.
Especially for industrialists to facilitate more and more travel. All member countries will benefit financially as there are no barriers to travel between countries.
Who will get this visa facility?
In the first phase, this visa will only be given to tourists. No one else will be given this benefit early.
However, after overcoming the complexity of the technical and legal issues of this visa facility, this visa facility will be given to businessmen and workers.
Once all barriers are removed, workers will also be able to enter GCC countries with a single visa and move freely across 6 countries.
But basically this visa facility has been introduced to increase the number of tourists. GCC countries hope to increase the number of tourists in the region to at least 12.87 million by 2030. To attract tourists, these countries are also thinking about launching common marketing, common tourist program application and common website for online booking.
What additional benefits will this new initiative provide?
This visa facility will also provide additional facilities for people performing Hajj and Umrah in Saudi Arabia to travel to the Gulf countries.
The aim of the first phase is to ensure maximum cooperation among the GCC countries through which the countries will facilitate the exchange of skilled workers in the second phase.
At the same time, it will be possible to use this visa facility for the proposed rail link connecting the Gulf countries.
When will this visa facility be implemented?
However, there is no official announcement as to when this visa facility will be implemented. However, some reports indicate that it may be officially launched by the middle of this year.
The full report has been picked up by probashtime.net news
by Sahidul Islam 17th February.
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