To strengthen the people-to-people relationship between India and Myanmar both the countries will provide visa-on-arrival for each other’s tourists which is going to be operational from 1st January 2019.
This development happens during Indian President Ram Nath Kovind’s five-day visit to Myanmar. The visit will continue India’s high-level engagements with Myanmar under the policies of ‘Act East Policy’ and ‘Neighbourhood First Policy’.
On the provision of Myanmar’s VOA to India, the president’s office tweeted, “taking people-to-people relationship further, Myanmar has also coinfirmed that its visa-on-arrival facility for Indian tourists is applicable for them who enter the country through the international airports of Nay Pyi Taw, Yangon and Mandalay.”
Further the President said that particularly the people of India’s Northeast region are going to be facilitate by this and can fetch the benefits of the Land-border Crossing Agreement concluded recently.
With this Myanmar will become the 42nd country to issue VoA to Indian travelers. Earlier this year, Zimbabwe started granting the VoA to Indians, and Malaysia also now issues easier visas, depending on your port and route of entry.
So far as India is concerned, its VoA program along with Myanmar, will also be extended to the citizens of Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines and Laos. While in the beginning of 2018, citizens of Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Singapore have been eligible for it.
The decision to launch the visa-on-arrival program was made after the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and India’s Ministry of Tourism signed an agreement under which the IFC was given the responsibility of developing tourism to Buddhist sites in India.
