COLOMBO : Sri Lanka has introduced a new “NOMAD” visa for those who are working online to obtain a visa to come over and work online from here, Immigration and Emigration Controller General Harsha Ilukpitiya said yesterday.
Travellers visiting Sri Lanka on Holiday Visas who had to extend their visas after a month’s stay in the country will be able to apply for their Tourist visas online from their own country for the entire period of stay in Sri Lanka. Additionally facilities have been made for investors to obtain visas to stay in Sri Lanka for a period ranging from 10 to 15 years
and Permanent Resident (PR) Visa will also be introduced for those who intend to live their entire lifetime in Sri Lanka.
“Discussions are ongoing with VFS Global having its branches in 145 countries, in finalizing to obtain their assistance in obtaining tourist visas for foreign tourists travelling to Sri Lanka from other countries.”
Within a month’s time we plan to implement this tourist visa process through which we are expecting to bring down three to four million tourists to Sri Lanka in the near future,” Ilukpitiya said addressing a press briefing at the Public Security Ministry yesterday. He said that a simplified new visa process will be implemented and the new visa process will eliminate many complicated steps in order to make it easy to obtain different types of visas, going forward this year.“We have already introduced with the assistance of the Acting IGP, the “Facial Recognition” system to identify passengers travelling through the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) and are in the process of implementing the system of identification of all passengers travelling via BIA to be recognised by their picture and fingerprints before their departure from the country and arrival in the country, which will be initiated in three weeks.A new office with all facilities required to obtain visas for those in the Northern Province will be opened in February in Vavuniya. All requirements have been completed to commence the Ferry Service between India and Sri Lanka from Kankesanthurai which will commence operations from this week.”
Ilukpitiya added that the Electronic Passport for Sri Lankans will be introduced within this year and expects that the Sri Lankan Passport will become more recognized across the world in the near future.
