Korean Ambassador to the Philippines Lee Sang-Hwa (Photo courtesy of KCC)
PH | Opening of a Korea visa application centre in Manila | MANILA – In response to an increase in travellers between South Korea and the Philippines, the Korea Visa Application Centre (KVAC) has officially launched in the Philippines to handle the rising demand from visa applicants.
Applications for all types of visas will be accepted at the KVAC, which is housed in the Brittany Hotel in Taguig City, and issued visas and passports will be released after they have been examined by the Korean Embassy in Manila.
In the meantime, the embassy will consider visa applications on an extraordinary basis from holders of diplomatic and official passports as well as individuals who need a visa immediately—within one to two days—for blatantly humanitarian grounds.
The KVAC will handle the embassy’s window services so that it can concentrate on screening and streamline the application process for Filipinos and the Korean community in Manila.
Korean Ambassador to the Philippines Lee Sang-Hwa hoped that KVAC’s launch will further boost inter-personal encounters and strengthen the Philippine-Korea alliance as the two countries celebrate their 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations in 2024.
“The Korean Embassy will continue to make efforts to promote people-to-people exchanges,” he said on August 29 at the opening.
In order to strengthen the close connection and partnership between the Philippines and Korea, he continued, “We will work to make it possible for more people to experience the beauty and culture of Korea.
The KVAC’s opening, according to the ambassador, is also in accordance with the Korean government’s promotion of 2023 and 2024 as the “Visit Korea Year.”
According to the Korean Cultural Centre (KCC) in Manila, 2.54 million Filipino and Korean citizens travelled between Korea and the Philippines in 2019.
The KCC is witnessing a slow comeback this year as the figure reached one million from January to July alone. During the epidemic, this substantially decreased.
The KCC stated that the level of people-to-people exchanges will return to the level prior to Covid-19. “This figure is a 4.7-fold increase from the first half of 2022.”
The KVAC has 3,879 visa applicants as of August 29.
More applications are anticipated to visit our centre and South Korea, according to the KCC.(via PNA)
