Russia annually loses $ 6 billion due to the hard visa regime.

Some of the BRICS countries, in particular, Russia, India and Brazil annually lose billions of dollars due to hard visa policy. This opinion was expressed in the Financial Times by the leading economist of the “Renaissance Capital” Charles Robertson. According to him, Russia has a great potential for the development of the travel industry, which is equal to tourist France. And the Russian climate is not a trouble. Taking into account the similarity of climatic conditions in Russia and Northern Canada, the expert believes that the country will be able to receive an additional $ 6 billion annually from foreign tourists. It is needed for Russia to reach the share of this sector of the economy to the level of Canada (1% of GDP), and even $ 18 billion, if Russia will come to the level of France (1.9% of GDP). Hard visa requirements for foreign visitors interfere to accomplish such potential. "Russia, for example, requires tourists to be interviewed in person, to be fingerprinted and provide a list of countries which the potential tourists visited in the last five years", - said Mr. Robertson. Western countries in the visa policy are guided by one main rule: restrictions are imposed for visitors from the poor countries to prevent immigration. Russia, Brazil, India, Nigeria can do the same. Another way - India, which since the end of 2014 introduced electronic visas for the citizens from 113 countries, and the total number of tourist, arrived in the first five months of the program, has amounted more than 100 thousand. This number is ten times more than in the same period a year ago.