An office of the RoK Embassy in Hanoi is crowded with applicants for visas in mid-April

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourismsaid on July 8 that it had received the RoK Foreign Ministry’s notification ofthe change in the country’s granting of five-year visas for Vietnamese citizensin the three major cities.

The RoK side said since it began grantingfive-year visas for Vietnamese citizens, the RoK Embassy in the country hasgiven more than 16,000 visas to Vietnamese nationals who have permanent andtemporary residence in Hanoi, Da Nang and HCM City. At first, it had grantedfive-year visas to only those with permanent residence in the three cities.

However, there has been a growing number ofVietnamese with temporary residence in the cities taking advantage of thispolicy to reside illegally in the RoK.

Therefore, the RoK has decided to resumethe initial policy, which is granting five-year visas to only Vietnamesecitizens with permanent residence in the abovementioned cities, according tothe RoK ministry.

This policy change has been applied since June10.

The numbers of tourists between the twocountries have been on the rise over the past years. 

Data of the Korean Tourism Organisation showthat in 2018, Vietnam welcomed more than 3.5 million Korean arrivals while theRoK attracted over 460,000 Vietnamese tourists. 

In the first five months of this year, more than215,500 Vietnamese visited the RoK, and over 1.7 million Koreans came toVietnam, up 32.3 percent and 22.4 percent year on year, respectively. -VNA