Canadians can travel to Kazakhstan sans visa from next year

Konstantin Zhigalov, Kazakhstan’s Ambassador to Canada, said that their government would waive visa requirements for all OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) member states, including Canada from 1 January 2017. Beginning next year, citizens of Canada will be able to head to Kazakhstan without a visa and stay there for up to 30 days. Adding that it was a novel measure with the intention of making travel easy for the citizens of all OECD countries to Kazakhstan, he was quoted by Ottawa Citizen as saying that their embassy had left no stone unturned to put Canada on their country’s list of visa-free nations. Zhigalov expressed hopes that the Canadian government would reciprocate and let the citizens of Kazakhstan citizens travel to Canada visa-free. The Kazakh embassy also has reportedly set up a Canada-Kazakhstan Parliamentary Friendship Group and a Kazakhstan-Canada business council. Business wise, Kazakhstan is said to be an important trading partner, with bilateral trade worth more than $7 billion taking place between the nations from 2012 to 2014. Even as this volume reduced in the last two years owing to lower commodity prices and global market volatility, the central Asian country remains on the global market action plan of Canada. Zhigalov said that they recognise the Canadian parliamentarians’ commitment to improving partnership as both countries commemorate the 25th anniversary of their diplomatic ties. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan will become a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council next year. According to Zhigalov, this is the first time that a country in the entire Central Asian will have a voice in the most powerful body of the world. If you are planning to travel to Kazakhstan, approach Y-Axis to get assistance to file for a visa from one of its 19 offices which are located in India’s top eight cities.