Illustrative image (Source: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – The Government on June 30 issued a resolution on the extension of visa exemption for citizens of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.
Accordingly, the visa exemption for citizens from the five Western European countries, who stay in Vietnam for a maximum of 15 days, will be extended one more year to June 30, 2017, regardless of the type of passports and immigration purposes, on the basis of fully meeting the conditions prescribed by the law of Vietnam.
Ministers, heads of ministerial-level agencies, Government agencies, chairmen of provinces and centrally-run cities shall implement this Resolution.
This resolution becomes effective from the date of signing.
After one year of offering visa waivers for the five Western European countries, travellers from these markets have been on the rise.
Data from the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism showed that the number of tourists from the five countries to Vietnam increased by 20.1 percent in the first five months of this year.
The office hopes that the visa waiver and tourism stimulus programmes will attract 1.1 million arrivals from those markets in the next few years, up 50 percent from 2015.
Vietnam now has visa waivers in place for 22 countries, including nine member states in the Association of South East Asia Nations.
The country expects to welcome 8.5 million foreign visitors and 60 million domestic travellers by the end of this year, earning a total 370 trillion VND (16.8 billion USD) in revenue.-VNA
