Delay in business visa issuance discussed with US, says minister Goyal

Washington, Jan 12 (PTI) India discussed with the US the inordinate delays in issuance of business visas to the people from India, and there has been a good resonance of it by the Americans, visiting Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said Wednesday.

“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 — the US businesses and Indian businesses — need to have faster processing of business reasons, so that trade and investment and business does not suffer,” Goyal told reporters at the conclusion of India-US Trade Policy Forum meeting that he co-chaired with the US Trade Representative Katherine Tai.

India, Goyal said, has made the request to the US that they may speed up the issuance of regular business visas when people come in for short trips to pursue their trade and business interests.

“We are delighted that the movement of professional and skilled workers, students, investors, business travellers, all are expanding between the two countries. That has helped increase our bilateral relations,” he noted.

“We are grateful that the US was able to process the student visas on an expedited basis so that in the post COVID-19 scenario, our students could come to the US to pursue their studies in the fall of 2022 semester. We are now requesting them to see how we can resolve the movement of business persons on short term stays to the US,” Goyal said.