Since the beginning of 2007, biggest number of visas, nearly 188 000, had been issued to Russian citizens, Deputy Foreign Minister Milen Keremedchiev announced on November 27 as reported by Dnevnik daily.

About 187 000 of the visas had been issued before October 24, which was 12 per cent more, compared to the same period last year. The increase of documents requested for tourism purposes increased 7 per cent, Keremedchiev said.

Next in the statistics were Turkish citizens, with almost 83 000. Third were Macedonians with over 76 000 documents issued by the consular services, 20 000 of which were for the purpose of visiting Bulgaria for retail trade. Ukrainians had 56 000 visas issued to them, Dnevnik daily said.

Keremedchiev said there was a serious decrease of visits from citizens of Moldova to Bulgaria, mainly because of the transit visas Romania and Turkey adopted.

Keremedchiev announced that as of the beginning of 2008, the experimental introduction of electronic application for visa would start. It is not yet specified in which consulate the system would be first introduced, but according to Keremedchiev this would most probably be in a country with high computer literacy. For three years now such a system had been in use at the Moscow mission for tour operators, Dnevnik daily said.