Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal on Wednesday said that India requested the United States to speed up the issuance of business visas so that people can undertake short trips to pursue their business and trade interests.
“We found very good resonance to our request that issuance of business visas which is taking a long time back home in India is an area which needs to be expedited, so that business persons interested on both sides, need to have faster processing of business visas so that trade, investment does not suffer,” Piyush Goyal said during a press conference after participating in the 13th India-US Trade Policy Forum in Washington. “India has made the request to the US that they may speed up the issuance of regular business visas where people come in for short trips to pursue their trade and business interest,” he added.
Goyal underlined that the movement of professionals, students, skilled workers, investors, and business travelers is expanding between the two countries.
“And that has helped increase our bilateral relations. We are grateful that the US was able to process the student visas on an expedited basis so that in the post covid scenario our students would come to the US to pursue their studies in the fall of 2022 semester,” he added.
Goyal is on an official visit to New York and Washington DC from 9-11 January to participate in India-US Trade Policy Forum. His visit included delegation-level talks and a one-to-one meeting with US Trade Representative Ambassador Katherine Tai.
This request to expiate business visas comes a week after State Department said that the US embassy and consulates in India have broken their record as nearly, 1,25,000 student visas were issued in the fiscal year 2022.
“Our embassy and consulates in India broke their all-time record for the number of student visas issued in the single fiscal year 2022. We have issued nearly 1,25,000 student visas,” US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said in a press conference while responding to a query over the slowdown in clearing visas backlog for Indian tourists.(ANI)
