On Wednesday 10 July the Department of Home Affairs announced that it will allow seven more countries visa-free access into South Africa. Following this, the Department has begun talks with the same seven nations to push for South African travellers to be allowed visa-free access to these countries.
The seven nations are Qatar, United Arab Emirates, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Ghana, Sao Tome and Principe.
Read: 7 countries that now have visa-free access to SA
BusinessTech spoke to department spokesperson Siya Qoza, who said that Home Affairs is in talks with these countries covering two topics.
The first is setting and confirming date for visa-free entrance into South Africa. The second topic is reciprocity.
According to Qoza, the talks have been positive and should be complete by September. There is an intention to potentially expand the negotiations to include other countries.
Qoza said that the department is “consistently looking at which countries would be of a trade and tourism benefit to South Africa,” as reported by Business Insider.
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