The countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are studying the opportunities for liberalizing the visa regime between member states. The Secretary General of the organization Nurlan Yermekbayev reported.
«Cooperation in the tourism sphere is a very important area of our work. All work is carried out within the framework of the agreement between the governments of the SCO states on the development of cooperation in the field of tourism,» he said.
According to the SCO Secretary General, heads of tourism administrations meet annually, a plan of joint actions in the field of tourism for 2024-2025 was adopted during a meeting in Almaty and one of the points of this plan is the study by the SCO member states of the opportunities for visa liberalization.
«That is, so far we are not talking about introducing a visa-free regime for all SCO member states, but about its liberalization, because mainly the provision of visa-free regimes now takes place on a bilateral basis,» the Secretary General said.
He noted that visa-free travel agreements are already in effect between a number of SCO states, have recently entered into force, or are planned.
«For example, an agreement between the governments of Russia and India will enter into force on April 1, 2025, according to which tourist groups on a bilateral basis will visit the two countries without a visa. In 2024, Iran abolished the visa regime for citizens of 28 countries, including a number of SCO states,» Nurlan Yermekbayev said.
According to him, there are also visa-free travel agreements in effect between, for example, China and Kazakhstan. An agreement between Kazakhstan and the Macau Special Administrative Region recently entered into force, a visa-free regime has been established between China and Uzbekistan, between China and Belarus.
