India-Malaysia Visa-Free Travel: Bloomberg quoted Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has announced that Malaysia will start visa-free entry for citizens of India and China visiting the country from December 1. That is, now Indian people will not need to take a visa to go to Malaysia. Indian and Chinese citizens can stay in Malaysia without a visa for up to 30 days. Bloomberg quoted Prime Minister Anwar as saying in a speech at the annual congress of his People's Justice Party on Sunday.
However, the issuance of a visa will be subject to security checks. Introduction of visa-free entry for Indians Malaysia has become the fourth country after Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and Thailand to announce visa-free entry for Indian citizens. According to reports, Malaysia wants to rapidly expand its tourism sector to promote economic development, and Indian citizens are known to travel the most all over the world, hence Malaysia is trying to attract the citizens of India and China to its tourism sector and to encourage traveling in the country.
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Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar last month announced plans to improve visa facilities next year to encourage the entry of tourists and investors "especially from India and China". Earlier this month, Vietnam's Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Jung called for short-term visa exemptions for key markets such as China and India to boost the recovery of the country's tourism sector, Vietnamese news agency VnExpress reported. Currently, citizens of Germany, France, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Denmark, and Finland can travel to Vietnam without a visa.
Before Thailand, Sri Lanka had also approved a proposal to grant free visas to travelers from seven countries for a period of five months till March 31, 2024. These countries are India, China, Russia, Malaysia, Japan and Indonesia. The move is aimed at attracting more tourists to the island nation. Local media outlets quoted the Sri Lankan Tourism Ministry as saying, "We are expecting the number of tourists to increase to 5 million in the coming years."
