Visa procedures for Turkish citizens will be shifted to the Foreign Affairs Foundation.
The new decision comes following the parliamentary commission’s approval of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) proposal that intends to centralize visa operations under the foundation, VisaGuide.World reports.
For many years, intermediary companies have been managing visa procedures required for traveling abroad from Türkiye.
Following the new proposal from the AK Party, the Foundation for the Strengthening of the Foreign Affairs Organization will also manage such procedures, with the majority of visa revenues going to the state.
In this regard, Deputy Foreign Minister Yasin Ekrem Serim said that as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they receive visa intermediary services from a total of 12 companies in 58 countries.
Depending on their geographical location, these companies are either local or proficient in this field. They are usually Turkish companies. Foreign missions in Türkiye also receive services from them. The reason is that there is a very large number of applications and documents in visa applications, so these visa intermediary services are used for sorting and processing them.
Serim said that the proposal envisages the foundation by also providing intermediary services.
According to AK Party Balikesir Deputy Mustafa Canbey, the budget from visa activities by intermediary companies last year brought more than 1.1 billion lire to the budget.
Canbey said that this amount accounts for 20 per cent of the visa revenues earned by intermediary companies, with a total of 80 per cent of the revenue remaining with these companies.
He said the annual income of visa intermediary companies last year was a total of 5.5 billion lira.
Recently, Nigerians have decried increased charges collected by firms engaged by the Turkish government for visa processing. The recent charges have taken many Turkey visa applicants by surprise after they complained that it had “gone beyond the rooftop”.
Applicants have expressed their concerns stressing that the increase experienced in Lagos and Abuja is a rip-off.
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VFS Global as well as BLS International among others, offer visa services for a large number of countries.
VFS Global operates in 147 countries with a total of 3093 application centers serving a total of 62 governments.
At the same time, BLS International operates in more than 65 countries, through over 12,000 application centers.