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Government to maintain free-visa policy despite criticism
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Law and Human Rights Minister Yasona Laoly speaks during the launch of an electronic service for those seeking services for intellectual property rights, trademarks and industry design in Jakarta on Thursday. (Antara/Rivan Awal Lingga)
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aw and Human Rights Minister Yasona Laoly said in Jakarta on Thursday that his ministry would strengthen the monitoring of foreign visitors.
“The most important thing is monitoring. If there are 9 million arrivals of foreigners, there should also be nine foreigners departing Indonesia, even more,” Yasona said in Jakarta on Thursday as reported by kompas.com.
He stressed that the rumor of an influx of about 10 million Chinese people to Indonesia was false and that Communication and Information Minister Rudiantara had identified the people that had allegedly started the rumor.
Previously, People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) Speaker Zulkifli Hasan and several lawmakers called on the government to review the free-visa policy to prevent the inflow of foreign workers to Indonesia.
Yasonna stressed that the free-visa policy was needed to boost the arrival of foreign tourists to Indonesia. He said neighboring countries had also applied the same policy to attract foreign tourists.
“This policy is to boost foreign tourist arrivals. We are a larger country with many tourist destinations, but tourist arrivals are less than those to Malaysia,” the minister added. (bbn)
