The UK Embassy February 21 opened a new UK visa application center in Ho Chi Minh City for the convenience of customers and in response to continued growth in tourism and business visitor demand.
The new visa application center located at Resco Building, 4th floor, 94-96 Nguyen Du Street , Ben Nghe Ward, District 1 is operated by VFS Global, the UK Border Agency’s commercial partner in South East Asia and offers an unrestricted service, accepting visa applications from all categories of applicants. Those applicants who previously had to travel to Hanoi to submit their application can now do so in the city.
Additional optional services such as a SMS visa application tracking facility and an internet kiosk for completing or amending online application forms are also now available to customers. A priority visa service, providing faster processing of applications, will also launch later this year.
A growing number of Vietnamese are choosing to visit, study and do business in the UK. In the 12 months to September 2012, the UK Border Agency processed over 14,300 visa applications from Vietnamese nationals, 16 per cent more than the previous year, and the new visa application center in HCMC will help cater for this increase in demand.
The new service, which operates on a user-pays basis, replaces the restricted application service at the British Consulate in the city which has closed because of size and resource limitations. The new UK visa application center is available to those who pay an additional fee of VND1,680,000 ($80.6).Applicants who do not wish to pay the fee to use the new application center still have the option of lodging their application in Hanoi at no additional cost.
Applications lodged in HCMC will be sent to the British Embassy in Bangkok for processing and returned to customers for collection.
Details of the new UK visa application center are on the VFS website. For UK visa guidance and information on how to make an application visit the UK Border Agency website.
