By Nishel Fernando

In an attempt to make Sri Lanka’s tourism sector competitive with  regional peers, the Cabinet green light has been granted to extend 30-day free visas to tourists from 35 countries with effect from 1st of October this year. The scheme is valid for a six month period. 

The Cabinet of Ministers on Wednesday approved the free-visa scheme recommendation by an expert committee after President Ranil Wickremesinghe in his capacity as Minister of Tourism presented the expert committee report.
Cabinet spokesman Minister Bandula Gunawardana elaborated that the main aim of this scheme is to position Sri Lanka as a free visa country similar to Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam in order reap the benefits from a rapidly growing tourism sector.

The 35 countries included in the scheme are  India, China, UK, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Australia, Denmark, Poland, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Nepal, Indonesia, Russia, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, France, the US, Canada, Czech Republic, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Israel, Belarus, Iran, Sweden, South Korea, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and New Zealand.

This initiative is based on a joint Cabinet paper submitted by Foreign Affairs Minister Ali Sabry and former Tourism Minister Harin Fernando proposing to extend free visa scheme for tourists from 67 countries. Subsequently, an expert committee was appointed to study on strategies followed by other countries in respect of the issuance of tourist visas without any charges.

The appointed committee has studied the eight countries that are working competitively with Sri Lanka in tourism and submitted the detailed report with the recommendation.

The scheme is also granted based upon the success of the pilot project granting free visas for from India, China, Russia, Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia and Thailand which was in effect since late last year.