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Kazakhstan has signed an agreement with UK to facilitate processing of visa applications, Tengrinews reports citing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan opened a visa center in Almaty and the British Embassy in Kazakhstan terminated its contract with VFS Global company that have been facilitating processing of visa applications, but despite that the applications are still sent to Istanbul for consideration. This practice has been in place since December 2012, and was a move made by the UK to facilitate and fasten the visa issuance process in its regional centers. However, in practice the procedure proved to be inconvenient.
“Having opened a new visa centerTeleperformance, the Embassy terminated an agreement with VFS Global starting April 7th. UK visa documents are now accepted by Teleperformance center at #92 Abylaikhan Av in Almaty. (…) Kazakhstan and the United Kingdom signed an agreement on facilitation of visa application process for Kazakhstani citizens,” the Kazakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
The changes in the system are sure to improve the process once their settle in, but for the time being are encumbered with some problems.
With the procedure currently in place Kazakhstani citizens applying for a UK visa are required to send their package of documents to a visa center and wait for 15 business days for an answer. But with closure of VFS Global and opening of the new visa center, Kazakhstanies were experiencing difficulty getting they passports with UK visas back lately. But Kazakhstan hopes that Britain will straighten out all the procedures and the Kazakhstan citizens will finely to able to experience the please of the promised simplified visa processing.
The UK announced its intention to simplify the visa process for Kazakhstani businessmen back in September 2013. And with the new developments in place the improvements will hopefully also include other groups of Kazakhstani applicants.
Reporting by Roza Yessenkulova, writing by Gyuzel Kamalova, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina
