{"id":3053,"date":"2019-02-05T18:49:51","date_gmt":"2019-02-05T18:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/?p=3053"},"modified":"2019-02-05T18:49:51","modified_gmt":"2019-02-05T18:49:51","slug":"uzbekistan-gives-visa-free-entry-to-visitors-from-45-countries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/2019\/02\/05\/uzbekistan-gives-visa-free-entry-to-visitors-from-45-countries\/","title":{"rendered":"Uzbekistan gives visa-free entry to visitors from 45 countries"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kukeldash Madrasah, a medieval madrasa in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. (Shutterstock\/File)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Uzbekistan on Friday granted visa-free entry to citizens of 45 countries to boost tourism, which the government views as vital for economic growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The countries benefiting from a 30-day visa waiver that went into force on Friday include the majority of European countries including Britain as well as Australia, Canada, Argentina and Chile. The United States is a notable exception.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The impoverished ex-Soviet country has made tourism a priority to reduce its dependence on commodity exports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The government is keen to show off the lavish Silk Road heritage of ancient cities such as Bukhara, Khiva and Samarkand.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Earlier this year, Uzbekistan granted a 30-day visa waiver to Germany while France became the first European Union country to benefit from the measure last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Uzbekistan&#8217;s tourism committee said last month that annual visitor numbers for 2018 were 5.3 million, double the figure for 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has reversed a number of policies that hampered tourism under his late predecessor Islam Karimov.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Among the restrictions he scrapped was a ban on photography in the capital Tashkent&#8217;s ornate metro that had led to police detentions of unsuspecting tourists.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mirziyoyev&#8217;s bid to boost tourism in the immediate aftermath of Karimov&#8217;s death in 2016 suffered a false start.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In December that year, he issued an order easing or cancelling visa requirements for visitors from 27 developed countries but this was swiftly reversed before coming into force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Observers attributed the reversal to resistance within the powerful security apparatus. &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Uzbekistan already offers visa-free entry to visitors from Turkey, Israel, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Japan, in addition to long-standing reciprocal visa-free entry for citizens of most former Soviet countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kukeldash Madrasah, a medieval madrasa in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. (Shutterstock\/File) Uzbekistan on Friday granted visa-free entry to citizens of 45 countries to boost tourism, which the government views as vital for economic growth. The countries benefiting from a 30-day visa waiver that went into force on Friday include the majority of European countries including Britain as well as Australia, Canada, Argentina&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/2019\/02\/05\/uzbekistan-gives-visa-free-entry-to-visitors-from-45-countries\/\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3054,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053\/revisions\/3054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}