Visa-free travel within Southeast Asian nations in offing
Agence France-Presse
Kuala Lumpur, January 26, 2005
Southeast Asian nationals will no longer need to obtain visas when travelling to ten countries in the region by the end of this year, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said in remarks published on Wednesday.
Leaders of the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed an agreement in 2002 to allow easier travel in a bid to revive confidence after the bomb attack in Bali the same year.
The following year, an ASEAN meeting in Hanoi urged member states to work towards visa exemptions for travel within the region.
"This will be fully effective by the end of the year," Abdullah was quoted as saying by the Star.
"Of course, we cannot downplay the security requirements of the respective member states," he said in a speech read on his behalf by Tourism Minister Leo Michael Toyad at an ASEAN tourism conference on Malaysia's Langkawi Island.
"However, in the spirit of ASEAN, I believe we can work together to create means, by which we can address these concerns and at the same time ensure visa-free intra-regional travel."
Many ASEAN countries have bilateral agreements on visa exemption for their respective nationals, but the organisation does not have a multilateral visa agreement.
© HT Media Ltd. 2004.