The government has steadily been increasing the number of countries whose citizens are allowed to enter Indonesia without having to pay for a visa in order to boost tourism. The current list includes 90 countries, but that number is set to increase to 174 with yesterday’s announcement by Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Rizal Ramli that a large number of new countries will be added to Indonesia’s visa-free list.
“There are 84 new countries that today we have decided to give visa-free entry to, effective starting this week,” Rizal said on Monday as quoted by Antara.
The list notably includes Australia, which Indonesia said it would be granting visa-free entry to twice in the recent past but eventually decided against both times, supposedly because Australia would not reciprocate the deal for Indonesian citizens going to Australia.
While Australia still has no plans to give Indonesian citizens visa-free entry, Rizal said that the Indonesian government had asked Australia to reciprocate in other ways, specifically by agreeing to three requests: first, to give long-term visas to high-ranking Indonesian officials; second, to ease the visa process for Indonesian businesses; and third, for Australia to tighten its measure against international drug trafficking that might affect Indonesia.
Rizal said the Australian Government has agreed to those requests, which should hopefully mean that the visa-free offer will not be taken off the table yet again.
Any controversy about Australia’s inclusion on the new visa-free list was far overshadowed by the inclusion of Israel on the initial list of countries released to the media
Because of its support for Palestine, Indonesia does not have any formal diplomatic relationship with Israel, leading commentators immediately wondered if Israel’s inclusion on the visa-free list was some kind of mistake.
Rizal Ramli took to Twitter to confirm that Israel’s inclusion on the list was indeed a mistake. But he also said there had actually been a proposal to give visa-free entry to Israeli citizens which was then rejected.
“Indeed, there was a proposal that Israel could get a tourist visa exemption. However, we decided against it since, until today, Indonesia does not have diplomatic relations with them,” Rizal said today as quoted by Riau Online.
Here’s a partial list of the new countries being added to Indonesia’s visa-free entry countries: Australia, Brazil, Ukraine, Kenya, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Palestine, Honduras, Pakistán, Mongolia, Sierra Leone, Uruguay, Bosnia Herzegovina, Costa Rica, Albania, Mozambique, Macedonia, El Salvador, Zambia, Moldova, Madagascar, Georgia, Namibia, Kiribati, Armenia, Bolivia, Bhutan, Guatemala, Mauritania and Paraguay.
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