Stabroek News

Brazil plans to waive visas for visitors from US, Japan

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BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil’s government is considerin­g waiving visas for visitors from the United States, Japan, Canada and Australia to boost tourism, and could eventually extend the plan to include China, a tourism ministry spokesman said yesterday.

The proposal by new Tourism Minister Marx Beltrão would extend for a 12-month trial period a visa-waiver programme adopted for visitors from the four countries during the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro this year.

Brazil’s President Michel Temer is keen to draw more foreign investment and visitors to Brazil to help pull Latin America’s largest nation from its worst recession since the 1930s Great Depression.

In 2015, 575.800 US citizens visited Brazil, less than 10 per cent of the total number of visitors to the South American nation. Meanwhile, the number of Brazilians visiting the United States soared in recent years to 2.6 million visitors in 2014.

The visa exemptions would become permanent if the number of tourists rises significan­tly and the government­s of the four countries reciprocat­e by removing visa requiremen­ts for Brazilians visitors, the spokesman said.

The minister’s proposal still needs approval by other department­s of the Brazilian government, particular­ly the foreign ministry which issues the visas and has demanded reciprocit­y to exempt US citizens from needing visas.

Visitors from most Latin American and European Union nations, and Russia, do not need visas to travel to Brazil, but US travellers have to cough up $160 for a visa to visit Brazil, an identical fee charged to Brazilians for visas to visit the United States.

The Brazilian fee was levied in retaliatio­n for exclusion of Brazil from the US visa waiver programme.

The tourism ministry is studying the inclusion of several other countries in its visa waiver plan, mainly China to try to attract some of the 100 million Chinese tourists that travel abroad each year, the spokesman said.

Only 55,000 Chinese citizens visited Brazil last year.

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