French visa center soon in Cebu

CEBU, Philippines - A French visa center may soon be set up in Cebu.

Morab Tayebi, regional director for Southeast Asia of Atout France, the European country's tourism development agency, said he is planning to convince the French embassy in the Philippines to set up a visa center in Cebu, a key city outside Manila.

"We would like to have a visa center here," he said in a recent interview.

"We will raise that to our minister to facilitate the visa processing here," he added.

French visa application center is currently present in Makati City.

In recent years, France has experienced a rapid rise in the number of Schengen visa applications from the Philippines.

In 2015, the Embassy of France in Manila received almost 20,000 applications, an unprecedented number reflecting a 100 percent increase from 2010.

Tayebi said it would also be wise to outsource the visa processing facility here to make it more faster.

The French embassy had projected the demand for visa applications to rise in the coming years, demands the embassy wants to address.

It deemed putting up an outsourcing center to be strategic and necessary as visa applications are seen to rise by 20 percent a year in the coming years.

Tayebi said they also hope to fast track the French visa applications in the Philippines, a move they already implemented in Indonesia and China, for instance.

"We hope to do the same here next year or this year," he said.

Philippine-French relations began during the Spanish colonial period, when France established its consulate in the Philippines in 1824 — the first one in the country. Later, as the Philippines was preparing for independence from the United States, high-level contacts were secured when President Manuel L. Quezon undertook an official visit to France in 1937.

Direct flight

In addition, Tayebi said a direct flight to France is also one of the long-term goals.

"Of course we want to have a direct flight. I believe we will talk soon with Philippine Airlines on that," he noted.

"That's my main wish for the Filipino market. We would love to work on chartered flights to Lourdes (a city in France)," he added. (FREEMAN)