The Government of the Republic of Indonesia hosted the 2nd Meeting of Consular Authorities of D-8 Member States on Implementation of Agreement on Simplification of Visa Procedures on 24-25 August 2016 in Jakarta, Indonesia. The meeting was attended by the delegates from the D-8 Member States.

This meeting follows the “Meeting of Consular Authorities of D-8 Member States on Implementation of Agreement of Simplification of Visa Procedure” held in Tehran, Iran in 2014.   

This meeting was aimed at working on the common interest of the Member States to simplify the visa issuance mechanism, particularly for the D-8 businessmen. Considering that D-8 has become an alternative forum for the Member States to increase their trading activities, simplification of visa procedure mechanism for D-8 businessmen to be agreed on this 2nd meeting is also expected to create more economic opportunities for the Member States.  The main objective of the meeting was to provide a platform for discussion, as well as exchange of ideas, information and experience among the Member States on streamlining the visa issuance mechanism for businessmen from D-8 countries. This applies to businessmen who have been verified by the chamber of commerce and the representative office of each Member States. Furthermore, the meeting was aimed at producing a verified database that would be distributed to the Member States’ representative office and chamber of commerce.  

Dr. Seyed AliMohammad Mousavi, the D-8 Secretary-General, mentioned in his opening address that ‘among the Non-Tariff Barriers to Trade (NTBs), visa restriction is a major hindrance for the growth of trade and economic activities’. He said that the issue of facilitating the visa procedure for the businessmen had been discussed in different occasions among the D-8 Member States and the important role of visa towards enhancing economic relation had been highlighted; through easing procedures on visa application for businessmen, D-8 Member states could increase intra-trade and create opportunities for investments.

He opined that the main objective of this meeting was to find solutions for some factual challenges in the implementation of D-8 Visa Agreement and, at the same time, to discuss ways and means, based on the common understanding, for further enhancement of the simplification of visa procedures. He said that it was the high time for us that we had concentrated on the D-8 Visa Agreement implementation in very concrete terms in order to strengthen trade and investment relations among the member states. I hoped that a set of viable recommendations, including the possibility of creating a D-8 Identification Card as valid identifying document in order to increase efficiency and flexibility in the visa application procedures, while leveraging technology to best secure and control borders, would be considered.