
Kuwait announces to Resume Visa for Pakistan after 14 years
Kuwait has lifted a visa ban from Pakistan after 19 long-awaited years. Pakistani diplomats have tried to restore the visa since then. The Pakistani government had been trying to restore the visa for Kuwait, but Pakistan was not lucky enough. In 2011, Kuwait suspended visas for Pakistan, Syria, Afghanistan, and Iran. The reason for the suspension was given as the country's security issues. However, since then, Pakistan has been trying to get visas resumed, and even ex-PM Nawaz Sharif visited Kuwait in 2017 to restart the process of visas; however, they were still declined at the time.
Then in 2021, the Kuwaiti government announced it would resume issuing visas for Pakistani families and for business purposes. Moreover, it was also decided at that time that the Kuwaiti government would also grant visas to people in Pakistan who are related to the medical field or petroleum field. Therefore, at the time, there was a limited grant for visas to Pakistani citizens, and now the Kuwaiti government officially confirms via the X platform that they have started to grant visas to Pakistanis.
Now, Pakistani citizens can avail visas for Kuwait as workers, visitors, or business trips as well. The government of Pakistan worked hard for the visa to be resumed, as Pakistan's main source of external finance is remittances, and now Pakistan's prime focus is to send as many workers as they can overseas and cash in on the opportunity to increase remittances. There is no doubt that this is good news for Pakistan; however, the government of Pakistan has to ensure that there are no scammers, like beggars, etc., to sabotage this visa process announced by Kuwait.