Mr. Vershbow

Alexander Vershbow, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea, underscored during a luncheon address at the Southern Center for International Studies in Buckhead his support for Korea to be included in the U.S.’s visa waiver program.

“Koreans like to travel for both pleasure and business,” he said at the April 19 event. “We issued 450,000 visas last year, and we were the largest visa issuing post in the world.”

He added that he expects more than 500,000 visas will be issued by the U.S. embassy in Seoul, Korea’s capital, by the end of the year, which he said provided an unusual hardship on the embassy staff.

Mr. Vershbow was referring to the U.S. program allowing citizens of 27 designated countries to enter the U.S. without visas. The criteria for admission to the program are outlined in the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The criteria stress passport security and a low non-immigrant visa refusal rate of generally not more than 3 percent as well as ongoing compliance with U.S. immigration law.

In response to a question after his address, he said that he did not think that the tragedy at the Virginia Institute of Technology involving Cho Seung-Hui, a Korean-American student who went on a killing spree at the university, would affect the visa waiver issue.

“The tragedy will not affect the visa waiver issue,” he said bluntly, adding that “it should not become an issue about Korea.”

More importantly, he added, was the Korean refusal rate for non-immigrant visa was from 3 to 4 percent, very close to the 3 percent preferred rate and close enough for the status to be approved “possibly as early as next year.”

Twenty-two of the 27 countries designated as visa waiver participants are from Europe, three are from Asia and two from Oceania.

Mr. Vershbow praised the Free Trade Agreement reached between the U.S. and Korea. Should the agreement be passed by Korea’s parliament and the U.S. Congress, he said that it would have the biggest economic impact since Nafta.

He also said both countries would benefit from increased exports and investments.

In addition, he said that if the trade pact is ratified, he would expect the visa waiver program to be instituted shortly afterwards, such as was the case with Australia, which was invited into the program following ratification of its free trade agreement with the U.S.

Besides the Southern Center, the Korea-Southeast U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Korea Economic Institute hosted the event.