Pakistan has updated the list of countries with which it signed visa abolition agreement - visa on arrival facility - under the new visa policy but ordinary passport holders of only five countries out of 48 in the list can avail this facility. The list of 48 countries with which Pakistan signed visa abolition agreement, including diplomatic and official passport holders of 31 countries, diplomatic passport holders of 12 countries and ordinary passport holders of five countries, can avail the facility.

The five countries whose ordinary passport holders will avail the facility include Maldives, Nepal, Tonga, Turkmenistan and Western Samoa for 30 days.

The previous list of countries with which Pakistan signed visa abolition agreement consists of 44 countries, but names of another seven countries were added to it, including Bahrain, Jordan, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Malta, Slovak Republic and Turkmenistan while the names of three countries including Hellenic Republic (Greece), Iceland and Zambia were removed, and thus the total number of countries reached 48.

However, the list did not contain names of India, the United States of America (USA), the United Kingdom (UK) and Afghanistan, which implies that citizens from these countries will not be facilitated under the policy.

The list includes names of Algeria, Argentina, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Brazil, Brunei Dar-us-Salam, China, Hong Kong, Czech, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, German, Indonesia, Kuwait, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Libya, Luxembourg, Maldives, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Philippine, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Vietnam and Yemen. It also includes names of Western Samoa, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Maldives and Nepal.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019