Foreign tourists visit Hue Imperial City. (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) - Tourists from the United Kingdom,France, Germany, Spain and Italy will continue to be exempted from visa untilJune 2021, Minister-Chairman of the Government Officie Mai Tien Dung said atthe Government’s press conference on May 4.
According to Dung, the move, at the proposal of severalministries, received the nod from Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc at theGovernment meeting on May 3.
The current visa waiver programme is to expire at the end ofJune this year.
Head of the Secretariatof the Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board HoangNhan Chinh said the council first raised the issue in March.
Headded that the council is glad that the PM had assignedthe Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of Foreign Affairs to research thepilot of electronic visa issuance and amendments to the Immigration Law.
Chinhalso said the 15-day duration for visa exemption also needs to bere-considered, as visitors from European countries tend to stay more than twoweeks. In addition, he suggested revising the stipulation that requires atleast 30 days for visa-exempted tourists to return to Vietnam after exiting thecountry.
Visa exemption for tourists from the five Western Europeancountries has helped increase the number of tourists from these markets by 10.1percent since it was introduced in mid-2015, according to the Việt Nam TourismAdvisory Board.-VNA
