Processing Post Closures and Openings

Office Closures: The visa office in Lisbon, Portugal closed on June 30, 1998. Responsibility for processing applications from Spain and Portugal, along with all existing files, has moved to Paris.

Our office in Riyadh will cease processing visitor visas from the Gulf as of November 11. Nonetheless, a locally-engaged employee will be retained in Riyadh to facilitate visa requests from Saudi Arabia, accepting applications and cost recovery fees and forwarding them by weekly bag to Abu Dhabi. Our limited visa presence in Dubai will be discontinued as of October 29. Our new office in Abu Dhabi is scheduled to open to the public on October 24 and will accept new applications from nationals and residents of the UAE, with Riyadh continuing to deal with the remainder of the Gulf visitor work until November 11. As of November 14, Abu Dhabi will have fill responsibility for all visitor work from the Gulf, and will house all the existing Riyadh visitor files. Like Riyadh, Abu Dhabi will be a satellite of London for immigrant purposes, with London sending files for area residents to Abu Dhabi for interview, as well as periodically sending a London officer to Abu Dhabi for interview trips.

Office Openings

Abu Dhabi will open as a satellite of London in the fall of 1998 (see above).

Our visa office in Prague reopened as a satellite of Vienna at the time of the re-imposition of the visitor visa for citizens of the Czech Republic. The program manager is now in place. Prague handles visitor visa applications only.

A Canada-based visa officer will be posted to Jakarta in late September 1998. The office will continue to be a satellite of the Regional Program Centre in Singapore with responsibility for the day-to-day processing of all non-immigrant applications (i.e. visitors, students and temporary workers) and returning resident applications. All immigrant processing for residents of Indonesia will remain the responsibility of Singapore.

It is anticipated that we will open a visa office in Shanghai within the next six months. There is as yet no firm date for opening this office. This office, which will handle visitor visa applications only, will become a satellite of Beijing.