In an attempt to boost its economy by attracting more skilled workers, South Africa is planning to update its current strict visa regime.
In this regard, Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber revealed that the new changes include a new points-based system for work visas that makes eligibility automatic for specific qualifications. At the same time, the country will also implement a remote work visa, VisaGuide.World reports.
As he explained, the paper-based visa system will be digitized within five years to reduce the potential for fraud and bias by caseworkers and speed up processing. This initiative also marks a significant departure from previous immigration policies, which have faced criticism for being xenophobic.
Visa reform to attract tourists, to attract capital, to attract skills are some of the most powerful things we can do in the short term to kickstart economic growth.
According to local media, foreigners with job offers in South Africa must wait months or years for a visa and are sometimes denied without any clarification. Meanwhile, Western tourists usually get visas quickly on arrival, but visitors from China and India, both potentially lucrative markets, must present inappropriate documents.
South Africa Tackles 306,000 Unprocessed Applications
Earlier this September, South Africa announced plans to introduce the Trusted Tour Operator Scheme (TTOS) next year to ease visa processing for Indian and Chinese citizens.
Such an initiative aims to facilitate travel to the country, which saw just 93,000 Chinese tourists out of more than 100 million outbound trips in 2023. Immigrants who come from other African countries are often accused of “stealing” jobs in South Africa, and as a result, the government is considered unfriendly to these immigrants.
When Minister Schreiber took office in July, he said his country had a backlog of 306,000 visas accumulating for over a decade. Further, he noted that with the reinforcements and working overtime, his team managed to get through 62 percent of them.
In addition, in May of this year, the same country had a total of 92,157 visas still unprocessed. The categories of unprocessed visas in the most significant number were as follows:
- Section 11(6) Visitor Visa (Spouse)
- Relative Visa (Spouse)
- Relative Visa (Minor Child) Section 18
South Africa has also recently approved its digital nomad visa law in a move to lure more international tech talent into the country.