India raises multiple visa limit for Pak businessmen

LAHORE: The Indian government has increased the limit of multiple visa facility for Pakistani businessmen to three years from one year to promote bilateral trade.
This was announced by Indian High Commissioner in Pakistan TCA Raghavan while responding to queries of Pakistani businessmen in an interactive session of the 5th Task Force Meeting of the Pakistan India Joint Business Forum (PIJBF) here on Monday. The 4th meeting had been held in August 2014 in New Delhi.
Interestingly, the announcement has come when India is not renewing South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) Business Visa Stickers to businessmen. These stickers are issued on a yearly basis by the respective member states to the entitled categories of a particular country. This visa sticker facility helps the business community of the Saarc member countries move without any hurdle for the promotion of business and trade among the Saarc states. This visa would be issued to all those individuals who were eligible for it.
According to details, the three-year multiple entry visa will be issued to only those businessmen who have annual trade volume of over Rs 50 million. Previously, one-year multiple entry visa was issued on the same trade volume.
Sources said the Visa Facilitation Task Force had also discussed this issue in the meeting to which Indian officials admitted that there were some reservations form the Indian Interior Ministry on the issuance of Saarc Visa Stickers to businessmen. “The Indian business community has taken up the issue with the government,” Raghavan said, adding that the Interior Ministry reservations had been redressed.
It was expected that the process of renewing and issuing fresh Saarc Visa Stickers to businessmen was likely to resume smoothly, said an Indian official attending the meeting. The Indian Interior Ministry has reservations that Pakistani businessmen are misusing the sticker as they are also visiting India for activities other than business. To this objection, the Indian business community redressed their Interior Ministry’s reservations by justifying that in business relations, attending family events are crucial to strengthen bilateral ties. The Indian business community also visits their Pakistani counterparts to attend such events.
The Visa Facilitation Task Force suggested increasing the visa facilities to people aged up to 65 years. It has also been jointly proposed by the two countries representatives to issue visas to businessmen without specifying cities. The two countries can create a “city negative list” for visas to businessmen while they can move freely in all other cities for the promotion of business. Similarly, cellular service roaming can be allowed. The task force also suggested 24/7 passenger and trade movement across Wagah-Attari border.
On Monday, four meetings of different task forces were held to remove obstacles to business promotion. The joint task forces on agriculture, visa facilitation, culture, tourism and SME deliberated on various issues.
After the meetings, an interactive session on business environment was held, which was chaired by PIJBF Co-Chairmen Syed Yawar Ali form Pakistan and Sunil Kant Munjal from India along with Raghavan.
Later, talking to a group of journalists, Raghavan said frequent visits of people were vital to increase the bilateral trade between the two countries. He said both Indian and Pakistan governments were trying to normalise bilateral relations.
On Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs), Raghavan said it existed on both sides. “We are gradually removing NTBs,” he said, adding that the volume of trade today was much higher than the volume five years ago. He said both the countries were moving in right direction.
On opening of cross-border branches of commercial banks of the two countries, he said the applications of these banks were in process. Responding to a question, he said India would join the Iran-Pakistan Gas Pipeline Project after sanctions on Iran were lifted. He said Iran’s deal with world powers would promote business and trade in the region and create stability as well. “We are monitoring the situation and it’s too early to say anything about it,” he added.