E-link between four ministries to grant investors visas within 24 hours

March 2, 2017

Riyadh, Mar 2: Four government ministries have agreed to link their systems electronically to facilitate issuing new visas to investors within 24 hours.

E-link

Al-Eqtisadiya newspaper quoted the Foreign Ministry’s head of media Osama Nugali as saying: “The agreement was reached to link the Ministry of Foreign Affairs electronically to the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Commerce and Investment, and the Ministry of Labor and Social Development by supplying the Ministry of Foreign Affair’s visa system with information and data needed to facilitate and speed up the process for issuing visas.”

He said the agreement also extends to the General Investment Authority to provide the Foreign Ministry with a list of approved establishments to facilitate their requests via the Kingdom’s missions abroad.

Nugali added that based on the agreement, the Kingdom’s missions have been approved to issue business visas to those wishing to come to the Kingdom to explore investment opportunities. He said applications do not need to be accepted from an authority in the Kingdom, and visas can be directly issued from embassies. Upon confirming the status of the application and approving it, visas will be issued within 24 hours from the time of receipt of the passport.

“These facilities also include commercial visits by individuals who hold commercial or business status, both men or women, and heads of foreign companies, regardless of titles. Representatives of companies coming on the basis of an invitation from a company in the Kingdom for a meeting with counterparts are also included,” he said.

The Kingdom’s embassies abroad have also been tasked with monitoring and evaluating the performance of visa service offices in host countries, and approving and ensuring these offices hand over the visa and passport on the same day, or within 24 hours from the time the application is made and documents are received.

Nugali said these developments are in line with Vision 2030 and based on the decision of Prince Mohammed bin Salman — deputy crown prince, second deputy prime minister, defense minister and chairman of the Committee for Economic and Development Affairs — to establish a committee to oversee process improvement in the private sector and incentivize participation in economic development.

The committee, chaired by the Ministry of Commerce and Investment, is responsible for facilitating the process of obtaining business visas through active participation of all concerned sectors and parties.

Al-Eqtisadiya reported in January that the Foreign Ministry adopted a mechanism to facilitate and speed up business and investment visa issuance procedures through electronic systems. This would allow foreign investors to visit the Kingdom and review investment opportunities more easily.

Under the new system, business visas have been classified into three groups: Business visit visas to a company operating in the Kingdom, business visas, and commercial delegation visit visas.

Application of the decision to issue commercial visas to businessmen and commercial delegations began on Jan. 1, 2017, Al-Eqtisadiya reported, while issuance of visas to visit commercial establishments in the Kingdom is set to begin in the coming days.

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News Network
November 7,2024

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The Israeli regime has killed at least 40 people during new airstrikes against eastern Lebanese areas, besides targeting the country’s capital Beirut with fresh acts of aggression.

Lebanon’s health ministry announced the fatalities on Wednesday, saying 53 other people had also been wounded during the aerial attacks that targeted the country’s Bekaa Valley, including the city of Baalbek.

In early Thursday, the regime was also reported to have attacked Beirut’s southern suburbs, including a site adjacent to Rafiq Hariri International Airport.

The attacks came after the regime issued short-notice evacuation orders apparently directed at the residents of the areas, claiming that the areas contained facilities belonging to Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement.

Tel Aviv has been using similar claims on countless occasions since last October, when it markedly intensified its deadly acts of aggression against Lebanon, in order to try to justify the escalation. Hezbollah has, however, invariably refuted the claims.

Also on Wednesday, the United Nations warned in its most recent flash report on the humanitarian crisis caused by the Israeli atrocities targeting Lebanon that the aggression had “reached a critical point.”

The attacks have claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people, which was “58 percent more than the 1,900 fatalities” that were caused by the regime’s 2006 war against Lebanon, the report said.

“Additionally, an estimated 1.3 million people have been displaced, both within Lebanon and into neighboring countries, 33 percent more than the number of people displaced in 2006,” it added.

Women comprised the majority of those who had been rendered homeless within Lebanon as a result of the Israeli attacks, the report noted.

It also regretted that the Israeli attacks had featured 78 assaults on healthcare facilities across the country that had claimed the lives of 130 health workers and injured 111 others.

In response to the aggression, Hezbollah has been staging hundreds of retaliatory strikes against the occupied Palestinian territories and the Israeli forces trying to advance on southern Lebanese areas.

The movement has vowed to sustain its strikes until the regime ends the escalation.

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News Network
November 12,2024

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The Palestinian Hamas resistance movement says its fighters have killed at least 20 Israeli soldiers in northern parts of the besieged Gaza Strip in just two days, in retaliation for the occupying regime’s genocidal war on the Palestinian territory.

In a statement on Monday evening, Hamas said that fighters of its military wing, al-Qassam Brigades, “killed at least five occupation soldiers” in northern parts of the coastal territory earlier in the day.

It added that Hamas fighters also killed 15 Israeli soldiers in the war-ravaged region on Sunday.

The resistance movement’s “qualitative operation … confirms once again the failure of the criminal Zionist entity to suppress and eradicate the Palestinian resistance, which continues to direct qualitative strikes against its terrorist soldiers,” Hamas further said on its Telegram channel.

Palestinians have increased their resistance operations in the face of intensified Israeli aggression in northern Gaza that has claimed the lives of more than 1,000 over the past weeks.

“Our valiant resistance is waging a war of attrition with the criminal enemy, inflicting daily losses on its soldiers and vehicles, and all of [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s bets and dreams of achieving any of his goals are failing,” the Gaza-based resistance movement added.

Hamas also vowed that Israel’s ongoing crimes and aggression against Gaza would be met with increased resistance and painful strikes, which will continue until the aggression against Palestinians ends and the regime fully withdraws from the blockaded territory.

As the war in Gaza enters its 14th month, the Health Ministry reports that Israeli attacks have killed at least 43,603 Palestinians and wounded 102,929 others.

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News Network
November 15,2024

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Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has killed or captured 69 terrorists linked to the Israeli spy agency Mossad during a major counterterrorism drill in the country's southeast, its spokesman says.  

General Ahmad Shafaei, the spokesman for the “Martyrs of Security” drill, said Friday that a total of 23 terrorists have been killed and another 46 arrested in various clean-up operations ever since the IRGC Ground Force launched it in the Sistan and Baluchestan province on November 1.

Seven terrorists have also turned themselves in during the period.

“The undeniable fact about terrorists is that they rely on arrogant powers, particularly the intelligence service of the wicked and vicious Zionist regime," Shafaei said.

“Unfortunately, weapons and munitions at terrorists’ disposal are among the most sophisticated ones in the world. This accounts for their heavy dependence.” 

The official stated that several members of the disbanded terror teams were non-Iranian nationals, who had been hired by foreign intelligence agencies to carry out acts of sabotage and terror inside Iran.

In a most recent operation, six terrorists were arrested and four others were eliminated, three of whom were non-Iranians, he added. 

On October 26, ten members of Iran's law enforcement forces were killed in a terrorist attack in the Gohar Kuh district of Taftan in the Sistan and Baluchestan province.

The so-called Jaish al-Adl terrorist group claimed responsibility for the assault, which was one of the deadliest in the province in recent months.

The group has carried out numerous terrorist attacks in Iran, primarily in Sistan and Baluchestan.

Its tactics include the abduction of border guards as well as targeting civilians and police stations within the province to incite chaos and disorder.

In January, Iran launched a military operation during which the headquarters of the Pakistan-based terrorist group was targeted in missile strikes, destroying its infrastructure.

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