Posts tagged ‘Schengen Area’

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04/12/2014

Visas for travel: Common sense comes to India | The Economist

RED TAPE is the bane of frequent business travellers. Many places in the world require arduous and expensive visa applications for even the most routine travel. I have two passports just so I can juggle concurrent applications when necessary. But the best policy, for business travellers and tourists alike, is a less-restrictive visa regime. The Schengen Area has proven a huge boon to European travellers; this blog has long supported making it easier for people to travel abroad.

Now there’s some good news. India, a nation notorious for bureaucracy and red tape—not to mention the long queues outside its diplomatic missions of people hoping to visit the country (see picture above of India House in London)—has dramatically loosened its visa policies. Travellers from 43 nations, including Germany, Japan, Russia and America, will now be able to receive visas upon arrival. There are, unfortunately, some restrictions:

You have to apply online four days in advance, pay a $60 fee, and upload a passport photo and a scan of your passport.

It only works for the international airports in nine cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Goa.

It is valid for 30 days, and you can only get two per year.

Narendra Modi‘s government has referred to the changes as being for a “tourist visa”. But the announcement makes clear the visa can be used for a “casual business visit”, and many Gulliver readers may decide that’s good enough for them.

The new policy is far from perfect, but it’s a step in the right direction and one that travellers should applaud. It will “send out a clear message that India is serious about making travel to the country easy,” Mahesh Sharma, the country’s tourism minister, said in a statement. That’s an encouraging attitude. If Mr Modi’s government can pull off more changes along these lines, travellers—and the Indian economy—should benefit greatly.

via Visas for travel: Common sense comes to India | The Economist.

Posted in Economics, India alert, Tourism, Trade | 1 Comment »

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30/08/2013

European Nations Woo Chinese Home Buyers With Visas

BusinessWeek: “Southern Europe’s cash-strapped governments are wooing wealthy home buyers from overseas by offering so-called golden visas to purchasers of high-end properties. Portugal, Greece, and Cyprus are offering temporary-residency permits to foreign investors, and Spain is about to kick off its program. The main targets are wealthy Chinese, who have been snapping up properties from Vancouver to London as Beijing tightens controls on real estate speculation on the mainland. Luis Hortelão, a broker with Re/Max in Lisbon, says his Chinese clients “know exactly what they want: a modern property to rent out during their absence and a visa to travel in Europe.”

Limassol, Cyprus

In Portugal buyers must pay a minimum of €500,000 ($670,000) for a property to be eligible for a five-year residency permit. A total of 102 visas has been granted since the program began last year, according to the Portuguese Immigration and Borders Service, mostly to Chinese buyers. Edmund Zhao, a real estate developer from Hangzhou in eastern China, expects to receive his permit any day now after paying €700,000 for an apartment in the resort town of Cascais. Zhao must spend at least seven days in Portugal during the first year and 14 days every two years thereafter. His visa will also let him travel freely through the Schengen Area, made up of 26 European countries that have abolished immigration controls at their borders. “I want to move there with my wife and parents as soon as possible,” says Zhao, 38, who wants to send his future children to European schools.

Searches for Portuguese properties on Juwai.com, a Chinese real estate website aimed at international home buyers, rose more than threefold from January through April, says Andrew Taylor, its co-chief executive officer. Home prices in Portugal are less expensive than in some parts of China; €300,000 buys a 2,000-square-foot villa facing the sea, according to Wang Ning, a manager in the international property department at SouFun Holdings (SFUN), owner of China’s biggest real estate website. That amount buys a 730-square-foot apartment in central Shanghai.”

via European Nations Woo Chinese Home Buyers With Visas – Businessweek.

See also: https://chindia-alert.org/2012/05/19/the-world-turned-upside-down-how-workers-are-moving-from-piigs-to-brics/

Posted in austerity, China alert, Economics, emigration | Leave a Comment »

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15/05/2013

* UK to try and simplify visas for Chinese tourists

Hard on the heels of special visas for Indian business applicants, Britain is trying to do something for Chinese visitors.

FT: “Home Office ministers are to start talks with Chinese tour operators in the hope of setting up an easier visa application system for groups of high-spending Asian shoppers who are discouraged by the UK’s border bureaucracy.

Chinese tourists at cake shop with windows decorated during Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee

The department has been under pressure from luxury retailers to streamline the process for Chinese tourists, who can enter most of continental Europe with just one Schengen visa and are therefore less likely to apply for a separate UK entry. As a result, France receives at least 25 per cent more Chinese tourists each year than Britain does.

Mark Harper, immigration minister, said on Tuesday that he hoped to begin discussions soon. “It’s just thinking about, practically, what can we do with the tour operators to enable them to make that process for getting both [UK and Schengen] visas as straightforward as possible,” he told the Financial Times. “We may not be able to get it to be perfect, but we can get it to be a lot better than it is now, which then makes us a lot more competitive.”

However, Mr Harper suggested that a previous idea of negotiating “parallel” processes – so that data for Schengen and UK visas could be submitted in one joint application – was looking less likely. This was because “you start running into issues about government IT projects and complex issues about data protection”, he said.

Mr Harper also indicated such a joint application would be difficult to achieve diplomatically because it was “not obvious” that it would be in the interests of Britain’s European partners.”

via UK to try and simplify visas for Chinese tourists – FT.com.

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