EASIER VISA REGULATIONS FOR TOURISTS VISITING KAZAKSTAN

As an experiment the Foreign Office of Kazakstan has decided to select 9 leading travel agents in Almaty and five in Astana, including CAT to facilitate the issuing of tourist visa, effective 8th January 2001.

These agencies will submit the invitation to OVIR and subsequently to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

This should take together not more than 3 working days.

The Ministry will preissue the visa to be available at the airport upon arrival. At the consular section, before immigration, the visas will be glued into the passport. The 9 agents have a designated staff at the Ministry.

Travelers will have to complete on board or at the airport the visa request form and submit 1 photo.

The fee for a 30 day visa is 30.00 US$. No extension is possible, it can be applied for double entry. The invitation will cost about 8.00 US$.

The agent will prepay the visa fee.

Registration after arrival with OVIR is still required, though there are plans to eliminate this rule. Fee about 0.50 US$.

It will be possible to register immediately after arrival in the OVIR office at the airport. For this, prior to arrival, the documents have to be presented to this office. If CAT supplies a transfer this will be done by our driver, if not CAT staff from the airport office will assist. Otherwise the registration must be made within 3 days after arrival at OVIR in town.

This rule applies only to nationals of the following countries:

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxemburg, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States of America.

Germany is at present excluded because of the many Germans of Kazakh origin, it is expected though that it will soon be included.

To apply for visa the following information is required:

Full name, Passport number, date of issue and validity. nationality, Profession, date and means of arrival and departure. Residence in Almaty.

CAT will charge expenses plus a service fee of 20.00 for its clients, 30.00 US$ for others plus 20% VAT. If payment by credit card AMEX, MASTERCARD or VISA, 3% will be added to the invoice.



RE.: Business Visa.

OVIR has agreed, that the required certified documents have only to be submitted once for the first invitation. It is expected that it will not be necessary to submit a copy of the statistical record and the company act.

CAT can apply for business visa for client companies, technical details are not yet all available.