ISLAMABAD: Sean Fraser, Canadian Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, said on Friday the processing time for a temporary resident visa (TRV) for Pakistanis would be reduced to 30 days “in the near future.”
There are over 215,000 Canadians of Pakistani origin living in Canada. In 2019, Pakistan was Canada’s fifth-largest source of permanent residents.
“Currently, a complete TRV application from Pakistan will be processed in 60 days, and we expect to hit 30 days in the near future,” Fraser said on Twitter, in response to complaints that the visa processing time was over 800 days.
“The website shows 802 days because we’re processing older applications from when borders were closed due to the pandemic. We’ve reduced the backlog for Pakistani TRVs significantly, from 55K to less than 15K.”
Fraser said Canadian authorities were also investing in a new processing center in Islamabad to boost processing and interview capacity in the Indo-Pac region.
Canada and Pakistan established diplomatic relations in 1947, shortly after Pakistan’s independence. Canada is represented in Pakistan by a high commission in Islamabad, a consulate and trade office in Karachi, and a consulate in Lahore. Pakistan is represented in Canada by a high commission in Ottawa and consulates general in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
In 2020, Pakistan was Canada’s 36th-largest export destination for merchandise, with Canada-Pakistan bilateral trade reaching $1.11 billion. Of this, Canadian exports to Pakistan totalled $669 million and imports from Pakistan totalled $438 million.
Opportunities for Canadian companies exist in education, information and communications technologies, cleantech, energy, oil and gas, and the agri-food and wood sectors.
