Indonesian govt to waive visa requirements for 30 more countries

Nusa Dua, Bali, June 11 (Antara) -- The Indonesian government plans to waive visa requirements for 30 more countries from July 1 to attract more tourists. "The free visa facility may increase the number of tourist arrivals," Deputy for Overseas Tourism Marketing Development of the Ministry of Tourism I Gede Pitana said after the opening of the Bali and Beyond Travel Fair here on Thursday. The addition of 30 new countries to Indonesia's free visa list is expected to increase the number of tourist arrivals by around 5 percent to 10 million from last year's 9.5 million, he added. "We will see a rise of at least 500 thousand tourists," Pitana affirmed. One of the 30 countries that will be included in the free visa list is India, he pointed out. So far, Indonesia has applied its free visa policy for citizens of the nine member states of ASEAN as well as Chile, Ecuador, Hong Kong, Macau, Morocco and Peru. "If the 30 countries are included in the second phase of the free visa list, the number of countries that will enjoy free visa facilities will be 45," he noted. Among other countries in the list, which will come into effect on July 1, are China, South Korea, Japan and Russia. In addition, he stated that the government had discussed the inclusion of these 30 countries in its free visa list at length. The Indonesian government has set itself the target of attracting 20 million tourists by 2019. Last year, the number of tourists visiting Indonesia rose 7.19 percent to 9.44 million, up from 8.8 million in 2013, according to the Central Statistics Agency (BPS). Also, the number of tourist arrivals in the world-renowned resort island of Bali reached 3.7 million last year.