German Ambassador has met with the Controller General of Immigration

German Ambassador to the Maldives and Sri Lanka, Dr. Jürgen Morhard has met with the Controller General of Immigration, Mohamed Anwar today.

The topics of discussion at the meeting were strengthening the relationship between the two countries and easing the German VISA process to Maldivians.

At the meeting, the German Ambassador said that the Maldivian passport and immigration process is very trustworthy since the Dermalog Company that designed the Maldivian passport is in the frontier of the fingerprint technology of the world and the passport is prepared with strong security measures.

The German Ambassador said that he believes that the Maldivian passport and immigration procedure would gain the trust of other countries as well.

He said that it would be easy for the Maldivian immigration system to integrate with the European VISA system since the biometric system and the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) are the latest in modern technology.

The two sides also discussed on how the Maldivian immigration could arrange fingerprints for German (Schengen) VISA applicants from Maldives instead of going to Colombo.

Dr. Jürgen Morhard said that discussions are ongoing between the Maldives and Germany to establish Schengen VISA applications in the Maldives. And so a special meeting was held with the Tourism Minister, Moosa Zameer.

Since November 24 2015, fingerprint samples are being collected from Schengen VISA applicants. And so a fingerprint sample does not have to be provided with every visit so long as it has not been five years since the sample was taken.