Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal said India has requested the United States to expedite the issuance of business visas so people can take short trips to pursue their trade and business interests.
Goyal was speaking at a press conference after participating in the 13th India-US Trade Policy Forum in Washington. He said, “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.”
During his address, Goyal also noted the movement of business travellers, professionals, students, skilled workers, and investors is expanding between India and the US.
The minister was quoted as saying by the news agency ANI, “We are grateful that the US was able to process the student visas on an expedited basis so that in the post-COVID scenario, our students could come to the US to pursue their studies in the fall of 2022 semester.”
He furthermore added, “We are now requesting them to see how we can resolve the movement of business persons on short-term stays to the US.”
His request to speed up the issuance of business visas to Indians came after the US State Department said that its embassy and consulates in India have issued nearly 1.25 lakh student visas in the fiscal year 2022.
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