The Embassy of the Republic of Korea to Mongolia changed its visa applying procedures and the modification came into effect on January 10, 2011.
 |
| Republic of.Korea Ambassador, II Chung (C) said it is now much easier for Mongolians to get visas |
The main change is that the Embassy will receive visa applications through authorized executive organizations. Mr. Chung Il, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea, explained that changes were needed to ease the visa application process for Mongolian citizens and it is made based on the experience of S. Korean embassies in other countries. He added, “Visa issues are very important to visit any country. There are many Mongolians applying for a visa to visit our country and they used to stand in queue outside the Embassy for many hours even in the winter time. Therefore, it has been decided to receive visa documents through selected companies in order to give pleasant service to citizens. We believe that thanks to the introduction of this system, it can satisfy the comfort of people, positively increase the number of travelers between the two countries and furthermore may be a start of a visa-free travel system to our country for Mongolians.”
On average 40,000 Mongolians visit the Republic of Korea annually, for the purpose of business, tourism, seminars, training, visiting relatives or attending universities and colleges. There are about 30,000 Mongolians staying for a longer term in the country and inter-people relations of two countries have considerably expanded. However, the Embassy of the Republic of Korea has few staff members and lacks technical provisions, which causes long queues to occur.
There were 75 companies competing in the tender to select authorized executive organizations to intermediate in visa applications.
Three of them: ‘Mongolian-Korean Association for Humanitarian Relation’, ‘Passport Express International’ and ‘Han-Mong Law’ were selected after considering the direction of their activities, experience, location, plan of activity for intermediating visa applications, working conditions and other factors. The three companies are responsible for receiving visa documents from citizens, delivering them to the Embassy, and giving visas issued by the Embassy to the citizen. In addition, the companies provide a service of visa-related advises and official translations. “It is expected that there will no longer be any difficulty that citizens used to have. Previously, people submitted their documents in just one place, but it is now increased to three. Also, I believe that it will be significant to help them collect visa materials accurately. There were many occurrences of returning the materials due to incompleteness. Now, we will care for people to arrange materials completely,” said B. Lkhagvaa, Executive Director of Mongolian- Korean Association for Humanitarian Relations.
A consul of the Embassy said that it conducted special training for the three companies on visa application materials and detecting counterfeit documents. If a visa applicant submits counterfeit documents, the three companies have the right to refuse them or write a special note while transferring to the Embassy. The Embassy set the fee limit to be no higher than Tgs 5,000 for the intermediary service of the companies
The Embassy of the Republic of Korea also advised that a certain part of visa documents, or unnecessary documents were eliminated. For instance, an invitation is no longer required for those who are economically capable, such as employees who have over Tgs1 million monthly salary, and businessmen who have businesses earning over USD20,000 annually and are visiting the country for tourism.
Also, a visa is not required if a Korean citizen is taking his or her Mongolian spouse or relative to the country, or if the Mongolian employee of a Koreaninvested company in Mongolia travels to Korea with a Korean citizen who resides in Mongolia.
source: The Mongol Messenger newspaper
0 comments:
Post a Comment