In a latest announcement, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam urged the ministry to promptly finalize and make public a plan for resumption of tourism and provide detailed instructions for localities to implement the plan.

He tasked the ministry to issue protocols for welcoming back foreign tourists.

Vu also asked the ministry to work with the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and relevant ministries, agencies to promptly design a new visa policy applicable to foreign tourists and report to the Government for consideration and approval.

Under the current regulations, Viet Nam unilaterally waived visa requirements for citizens of 13 countries, namely Japan, the Republic of Korea, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Belarus, the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

In addition, Viet Nam and 88 other countries and territories reached agreements on visa exemption.

The Government however decided to halt entry to foreign tourists from March 22, 2020 due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Viet Nam.

The country began to welcome back foreign tourists from November 2021 under a pilot program after successfully deploying vaccination strategy, with 186,479,340 doses having been administered to date.

With the new tourism resumption plan, incoming tourists may only be required to have proof of vaccination or recovery from COVID-19 and negative test result certificate issued within 24 hours (rapid test) and 72 hours (RT-PCR) before departure./.