Jakarta (VNA) – The Indonesian government isconsidering granting visa-free entry to nationals of 20 countries andterritories, aiming to attract more foreign visitors and promote economicgrowth.

The initiative was proposed by Indonesian Minister of Tourismand Creative Economy Sandiaga Uno during a working session with President JokoWidodo on December 7, targeting a tourism revenue of over 200,000 billion Rupiah(12.9 billion USD) next year.

The country has announced a list of 18 countries andterritories for the scheme, namely Australia, China, India, the Republic of Korea,the US, UK, France, Germany, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands,Japan, Russia, Taiwan (China), New Zealand, Italy, and Spain. The remaining twoare expected to be from the Middle East.

Uno said that these countries and territories have provideda considerable number of tourists to Indonesia.

In addition, Indonesia has also recorded a significantnumber of visitors from some Middle Eastern countries, especially forinvestment purposes.

According to Statistics Indonesia (BPS), the countryrecorded 626.09 million domestic tourists in the first nine months of thisyear, an increase of 12.81% over the same period last year. It also exceededthe number of domestic tourists in the whole of 2019 with 527.59 million./.