Vietnam has launched a campaign to woo tourists from India, eyeing the middle classes who are showing more inclination to travel abroad. A step forward in this direction is the setting up of two visa application facilitation centres – one in Kolkata and the other in the city, its Ambassdor to India Ton Sinh Thanh said.
Speaking after inaugurating the VFS Global Vietnam Visa Application Centre here on Monday, he said that from a mere 18,000 tourists from India to Vietnam in the year 2011, the figure now stood at 55,000. “We see a lot of potential for tourist traffic from India that is growing at 100 per cent year-on-year,” he stated, adding that the normal time taken to issue visas was 72 hours, with an express facility that would be issued within 36 hours.
Asked about trade between the two nations, he said it was an estimated $5 billion. “Goods out of Vietnam include mobile phones and accessories, computer chips while our imports from India include heavy engineering equipment, pharmaceutical ingredients and products and garments,” Mr. Ton Sinh Thanh.
VFS Global Chief Operating Officer (South Asia), Vinay Malhotra said the facility was conveniently-located, had a dedicated website with the required information, a call centre and email support, 100 per cent secure handling of documents and important personal information and convenient and secure return delivery of visa documents.
