A boom in the numbers of visas issued (up 13.5%) and a significant increase in visits to the esteri.it portal (over 5.5 million visits and nearly 17 million page views). A portal which Aldo Amati, the Head of the Press and Institutional Communication Service, described as “a doorway to the Farnesina and to Italy’s foreign policy”.
These were some of the key figures to emerge at today’s event illustrating the 15th edition of the MFA Statistical Yearbook. Participants included the Deputy Secretary General Antonio Bernardini, who gave a welcome address on behalf of Secretary General Michele Valensise; the Director General for Italians Abroad and Migration Policies, Cristina Ravaglia; Amati himself and the Head of the Statistics Office, Sabrina Ugolini.
Exciting figures
“We attach great importance to these exciting figures, which translate into about 104 million euros for the Treasury”, underscored Ambassador Ravaglia. She was referring to the boom in entry visas encouraging tourism and business flows in our country. For the first time, the number of visas issued exceeded 2 million (2,125,465), making Italy – with a visa issued every 15 seconds – one of the top Schengen countries (after France but ahead of Germany). In percentage terms, 2013 saw a 13.5% increase over the previous year. And in terms of geographical distribution, nearly 50% of the visas were issued in non-EU European countries, 28% in Asia, 12% in the Mediterranean and Middle East, and 4% in Africa and the Americas.
Russian Federation leads the way
The Russian Federation continues to lead the way for the number of visas applied for and issued (770,605), followed by China (346,739), Turkey (140,388) and India (80,759). 78% of visas issued were for
