Ukraine issues 51% more visas to foreigners in first half of 2016 – foreign minister

Ukraine has raised the number of visas issued to foreigners by 51% in the first half of this year, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has said.

"We are opening the world to Ukrainians and opening Ukraine to citizens of many countries of the world as well. If I am not mistaken, over the first six months of this year, we have raised the number of issued visas by 51%. This means that people are coming to us, we are interesting to the world and we should keep up this process," the foreign minister said at the opening of the 12th consultations of heads of foreign diplomatic missions of Ukraine in Kyiv on Monday.

Among other achievements of the past several years, Klimkin named 'electronic visas'. In his words, the 'electronic consul' service will become fully operational soon.

According to Klimkin, some 7 million Ukrainians are currently staying abroad.

"We are taking care over about 7 million Ukrainians abroad," he said.