India to extend visa-on-arrival facility to ASEAN countries
30 Oct 2010
India will extend the `visa-on-arrival' facility to nationals of Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines and Laos with effect from 1 January 2011, prime minister Manmohan Singh announced at the ASEAN summit today.
He said India has accorded high priority to the countries covered by the "Initiative for ASEAN integration". Besides, he said, India wanted to upgrade the level of youth exchanges and establish vocational training centres in each of these countries.
As a further measure to support the ASEAN master plan on connectivity, India will offer 100 IT scholarships to each of the 10 ASEAN countries over the next 5 years, he said.
He noted that there has been a substantial increase in people-to-people exchanges between India and the ASEAN, with over 3 million Indian tourists visiting ASEAN every year and about 380 flights connecting Indian and ASEAN cities every week. But, this is well below the potential, he added.
India and ASEAN have, meanwhile, finalised the text of a memorandum of understanding for cooperation in tourism and ASEAN will soon establish its promotional chapter for tourism in Mumbai.
Manhoman said science and technology could be another focus area for India-ASEAN cooperation. Towards this, India has proposed to set up a centre for tracking and data reception and an imaging facility for the ASEAN countries. This centre would utilise data provided by Indian remote sensing satellites and harness it for multiple developmental applications, he said, adding that he would ask heads of Indian space agencies to work out exact details of cooperation.