India Is A Prime Focus Area: Ahern

It is surprising but true that United Kingdom gets more than 200,000 visitors from India while only 8,000 visas have been issued by the Ireland embassy in 2004. In an effort to woo the travellers visiting London, Ireland Tourism has tied up with Visa Facilitation Service (VFS) to outsource visa processing. "The government of Ireland as a policy decision has planned to focus on India and south-east Asian countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand to improve business and trade relations. And tourism is one area that the government is putting the thrust on. The reason is that 85 per cent of all our produce - be it agricultural, processed food, pharmaceutical, chemical, etc - is exported and we believe there is huge market potential in this region," said Michael Ahern, Ireland's minister for international trade who recently visited India. India, he pointed out, is specially a prime focus area because since 1999 both countries have witnessed 20-30 per cent increase in bilateral trade and tourism.

"Currently, the total trade is 400 million Euro and roughly, 50-50 is the export-import ratio. With increase in Indo-Irish joint ventures in software industry and presence of a large community of Indian health professionals in Ireland, we have seen an increased incidence of repeat visits. We see immense tourism potential in the FIT and business traveller segment because people visiting London are looking for new destinations and Ireland can be the perfect choice with less than one hour flight time and 400 flights per day from UK. So, we have decided to promote all-Ireland tourism and facilitate visa procedure," proffered Ahern.

According to him, through VFS centres across the country now information on Ireland visa will be given to all those who will apply for UK visa. "70 per cent of the visa applications can be decided in Delhi. To promptly take a call on some 30 per cent visas a deciding officer is coming to India," he added.

(With inputs from Anindita Chattopadhyay, New Delhi)