By Sami Zaptia.
Tripoli, 20 September 2013:
Speaking on the second and final day of the CWC Libya Forum on oil and gas (17-18 . . .[restrict]September) in Tripoli, the Italian, Korean, British, US and Spanish ambassadors participated in a special ambassadorial session under the banner “attracting new entrants to Libya’s hydrocarbon sector”.
At the session the link between their nations offering help in human resource development and training and their respective embassies’ visa process was made. In response, the ambassadors made some interesting remarks about visas and its process for Libyans.
US ambassador Deborah Jones revealed that by January or February 2014 she hoped that the US embassy could open its visa section. “I hope to hear complaints about the visa process”, she joked.
Italian ambassador Giuseppe Buccino Grimaldi said that his embassy had increased visa processing by 50 percent since 2012. He hoped that the process would be speeded up from the current 9-10 days to 2-3 days as a result of a Schengen review of the process for Libya. He also revealed that the Italian embassy was considering outsourcing the visa process, as other embassies have done such as the British and Canadian embassies.
The Italian ambassador understood the link between the visa process and the human resource development and training of Libyans in the hydrocarbon sector.
With regards to the visa process, the Spanish ambassador, Jose Riera Siquier said that his embassy was slowly increasing its capacity to deal with the huge increase in applications. He revealed that less than 5 percent of applicants were rejected.
He admitted that the waiting list is long and revealed that his embassy is considering following the trend of outsourcing the process. The closure of some fellow Schengen embassies has put more pressure on the embassies that had remained opened.
For his part, Korean ambassador Lee Jong-Kook, said he knew of no complaints about the Korean visa process. The British ambassador chose to make no comments about the British visa application process, which is also outsourced to an outside contractor. [/restrict]
