India Asks Canada To Remove Visa Hurdles For IT Professionals

29 Sep 2011

Indian IT professionals are facing visa issues from Canada too in addition to US. The issue was discussed in a meeting between Indian and Canadian Ministers.

Anand Sharma, Minister of Commerce and Industry during the discussion with Canadian Minister of International Trade and Asia-Pacific, Gateway Edward Fast said that Canadian Government should eliminate the hurdles of the visa process for Indian IT professional to enable easy movement from India to Canada.

Government of Canada has recently altered visa rules under which multiple entry visas are issued. Indian immigrants hold the second position in Canada from overall immigrations in the country. The population of Indo-Canadian community is expected to be 1 million in the country, said Edward Fast.

In the year 2009, Canada issued Indian nationals 145,835 visas. Of those, 31,090 were permanent resident visas, 6,964 related to studies, 98,545 were temporary resident and 9,235 were temporary work permits.

Ministers of both countries had same opinion on all problems associated with Foreign Investment Protection Agreement and the Bilateral Social Security Agreement. Sharma said the agreements will assist in flow of investments and also offer social security to the expatriates of both nations. He said all the issues have been discussed and the agreements will be signed in a favourable time.

In the meeting, Indian Minister focused more on arranging next meeting soon so that India-Canada CEOs together can fix the schedule for initiating the business between two nations.