Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Kazakhstan plans to cancel visa requirements for citizens of 47 developed countries.

The step is aimed to attract foreign tourists, businessmen and investors, a source in the Kazakh Foreign Ministry told Trend news agency on Wednesday.

"Currently, the Foreign Ministry is developing a draft project on launching of temporary visa-waiver regime for citizens of 47 politically stable and economically developed countries," the source said.

The source said Kazakhstan unilaterally introduced a simplified procedure for issuing visas for citizens of 27 countries of the European Union (EU). In 2012, this list grew up to 48 countries.

Currently, citizens of the countries included in this list can get single-entry business, tourist and private visas within three days providing a minimum amount of required documents and no invitation.

The list of the countries with simplified visa regime, as well as a list of documents required for obtaining the Kazakh visas is available on the official website of the Kazakh Foreign Ministry.

Visa issuance rules in Kazakhstan came into force on March 1, 2010.

These rules are aimed at further liberalization and streamlining of Kazakhstan's visa regime.

The rules provide more favorable conditions for private and business travels, tourism, as well as investment activities in Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan aims to attract foreign tourists, investors and businessmen to the country and in this regard, is developing a concept of the development of the tourism sector until 2020 and a state program for the development of infrastructure.

Prime Minister Serik Akhmetov said Kazakhstan has a vast territory with potentially attractive tourist areas. Implementation of this concept will allow creating new jobs and a profitable business climate in the country.

Furthermore, in order to attract foreign investors, Kazakhstan's government plans to exempt subsoil users from value added tax (VAT) on exploration operations.

In November 2012, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev instructed the northern regions' representatives to intensify the efforts on attracting investors in the mineral resource sector and stressed the necessity of the government's taking certain measures to raise the regions' interest in attracting investment and lift the moratorium on some types of mineral resources.