ISLAMABAD – The government is going to introduce the new visa regime and asa pilot project, electronic visas to five countries – Turkey, China, theUnited Kingdom, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates are being startedfrom Thursday (March 14), which will be later extended to 170 countries.Talking to newsmen, Information Minister Chaudhry Fawad Hussain and SpecialAssistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Media Iftikhar Durrani said PrimeMinister Imran Khan was going to announce the new visa policy tomorrow(Thursday) with the main purpose to initiate a new era for the tourismindustry and business activities in the country.
The information minister said the citizens of 90 countries would be issuedbusiness visas while online visa facility would be offered to the visitorsof 55 countries.The passenger identification system for e-visas, he said, at Karachi andLahore airports had been installed, which it would start functioning in amonth. The same system would also be installed at other airports of thecountry, he added.Fawad said the visas procedure for foreign journalists was also beingreviewed. There would be no need of a No Objection Certificate (NOC) forjournalists coming from the European Union countries, the United Kingdomand the United States.He said the Pakistanis journalists had expressed their desire for coverageof Indian elections and he would write a letter to the Indian HighCommission in that regard.To a question, he said the government was striving hard to promoteg tourismand the private sector should also come forward to put their share throughthe hotel industry.To a question, the minister said Prime Minister Imran Khan was notresponsible for the wrong policies of previous governments. Fortunately,all the state institutions today were on the same page with exemplarycivil-military relationships, he added.He said the international community was reposing their trust in the primeminister. The world listened to him as he had an international stardom.The minister said implementation of the National Action Plan (NAP) wasunderway while the merger of Federally Administered Tribal Areas intoKhyber Pakhtunkhwa was a big success of it.He said Pakistan could not afford to be put in the black list of FinancialAction Task Force (FATF). About 70 percent conditions of the FATF had beenfulfilled and hopefully the country would be out of its grey list bySeptember.To a question, he said they were consulting the opposition parties on theextension of military courts’ mandate. The prime minister had given thetask to Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi to contact the opposition inthat regard.He said the talks between the Afghan Taliban and the United States weremoving in the right direction, which would also benefit Pakistan.He castigated the offer of Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal BhuttoZardari to imprisoned Pakistan Muslim League-N chief Nawaz Sharif to takehis treatment in Sindh. Nawaz Sharif was a heart patient and should nothave been given such offer as the Sindh government hospitals lacked propertreatment facilities, he added.As regards the PPP’s ‘Jail Bharo Tehrik’, Fawad said only one barrack of ajail was sufficient to house all the workers of PPP from Punjab, KhyberPakhtunkwa and Sindh.He said the process for the appointment of new managing director ofPakistan Television was underway, who would be appointed in next two weeks.
SAPM Iftikhar Durrani said Pakistan had many Buddhist spots like Ghandharaand it could attract 20 million Chinese Buddhist tourists, who travelled toIndia every year to visit their religious spots there.Twenty Buddhist relics housed at the Peshawar Museum would be put ondisplay at exhibition in China, which would have a positive impact onPakistan’s Buddhist tourism, he added.To a question, he said with the improved security situation, the interestof international tourists in Pakistan was increasing. Peace in Afghanistanwould further improve the security situation here, he added.
