KARACHI: Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Hamad Obaid Alzaabi said on Friday his country would be opening a visa centre in Karachi in September which would be the biggest such facility in Asia.

During his visit to the office of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), the UAE ambassador said another facility centre would start functioning in Islamabad in the first week of October, offering all facilities in Pakistan.

“Everything will be here, including medical insurance, check-ups and contracts etc, to facilitate visa issuance from the visa centre in Karachi which will be the biggest visa centre of Asia while the entire team for this Visa Centre at Khayaban-i-Shamsheer in Karachi will come from the UAE,” said a statement issued by the KCCI after the visit of Mr Alzaabi, who was accompanied by UAE Deputy Consul General Bakheet Ateeq Alremeithi.

The UAE officials attended a meeting at the KCCI office in which chairman of Businessmen Group and former president of KCCI Siraj Kassam Teli, KCCI president Junaid Esmail Makda, senior vice president Khurram Shahzad, vice president Asif Sheikh Javaid and managing committee members were present.

While expressing gratitude to KCCI members for their warm hospitality on his visit, the statement said, the UAE ambassador said that he had visited many areas of Pakistan, including Faisalabad, Sialkot, Lahore, Peshawar, South Waziristan and Quetta, but Karachi was one of the most important cities of the country where social life, atmosphere, culture and people were very different as compared to other areas, including Islamabad.

“We are trying to find new areas of cooperation where we could work together and also examining the challenging areas so that these could be addressed by the authorities in the UAE. Insha Allah, we will put our hands together to move forward in future,” the statement quoted the UAE ambassador as saying.

He further said that the UAE was now offering Silver Investment Visa for five years and Golden Investment Visa for 10 years which were being issued under a specific criterion and depend on the size of a company and also the amount being invested.

Published in Dawn, July 20th, 2019