‘Risky visitors’ will have to pay visa bond

LONDON: Britain’s Home Office confirmed yesterday it will demand a £3,000 (144,000 baht) refundable bond for visas for ‘‘highrisk’’ visitors from six former colonies in Africa and Asia — a pilot scheme that has brought warnings at home and abroad that it will damage trade.

Britain said in a statement yesterday that it will go ahead with the pilot scheme despite the outrage, charges of discrimination and warnings of retaliation.

The statement sent by email did not say when the pilot would start. But it said it could apply the scheme in the future for all visas and any country.

‘‘The pilot will apply to visitor visas, but if the scheme is successful we’d like to be able to apply it on an intelligenceled basis on any visa route and any country,’’ it said.

For now, the targeted countries are Nigeria, Ghana, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Government data shows citizens of those countries applied for more than half a million visa applications last year.

Nigeria’s government made a formal demand last month that Britain renounce the proposal as it was being discussed. Foreign Affairs Minister Olugbenga Ashiru called in the British high commissioner to express ‘‘the strong displeasure of the government and the people of Nigeria’’ over the ‘‘discriminatory’’ policy.

Mr Ashiru warned the move would ‘‘definitely negate’’ the two country’s commitment to double trade by 2014.