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Italian Ambassador to Bangladesh Ambassador Antonio Alessandro has said visa applications accompanied by fake documents and illegal practice of paying hefty amount of money to middlemen are among the reasons that create problem in making smooth migration from Bangladesh to Italy. “We are determined and committed. The Embassy and our authorities back in Rome, we are committed to make the migration from Bangladesh to Italy increasingly safer and orderly,” he said in an interview at the embassy.
The ambassador encouraged everyone to entrust only the reliable partners and migrants and workers should make sure that where they are going to work, which kind of job, under which conditions and in which city in Italy. The Bangladeshi community living in Italy, the largest in the EU, is a strong pull factor in this regard. It contributes significantly to the well-being of Italy and is also an important source of remittances for Bangladesh with 1.2 billion euros transferred in 2022.
“There is a practice of paying middlemen very high amount of money to organize the transfer to Italy. This is an illegal practice, actually both in Italy and in Bangladesh,” he said. “This practice must stop. And this is the main reason for our slow process. And this is the main reasons why our migration from Bangladesh to Italy is having problem,” said the Italian envoy.
He said work visa is one category and there are other categories of visas - there are tourist visa, business visa, study visa, family visas and all these categories are growing in large numbers.
“Our official agency for visa processing is VFS Global. They are the only one authorised to collect documents for visa applications and there has been a lot of talking, for example, about the difficulty of getting an appointment that is not VFS’s fault, Alessandro said, adding that they have put a ceiling on the number of applications that they can accept every day.
“Otherwise we cannot process it. And that's why it's difficult to get an appointment because there is a ceiling. And of course, many people cannot enter into this within this ceiling,” he added. The ambassador said they have taken some measures and one is to acquire new space which will be a larger space, more functional for the visa office and the same for VFS Global. “VFS also moved to a new facility, new visa application center, much larger and more functional and comfortable for applicants.”
He said they had a delegation from the headquarters recently to assess the situation and study options for helping the embassy in dealing with this backlog.
Messenger/Hasan
