Hanoi - Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said his country's embassy in Hanoi will take new steps to fight corruption in granting visas to Vietnamese applicants, whose numbers have swelled in recent years. Topolanek is on a two-day visit to Hanoi, where he met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.
The Czech prime minister said in the future, Vietnamese visa applicants would be assigned interview times in advance by telephone, "to reduce the bribery issue among people queuing in front of the embassy."
Since the Czech Republic's accession to the European Union in 2004, it has become a favorite destination for Vietnamese economic migrants and entrepreneurs. Applications for visas swelled to 14,000 last year, and hundreds of visa applicants may be lined up outside the embassy in Hanoi on a given day.
In January, an opposition deputy in the Czech parliament accused the embassies in Vietnam, Mongolia and Ukraine of involvement in corruption in the assigning of visas, a charge the Czech foreign ministry denies.
Besides tackling the visa issue, Topolanek and Dung signed agreements on protecting private investments in each others' countries, and on educational cooperation.
There are more than 50,000 Vietnamese citizens living in the Czech Republic, making up the country's third largest ethnic minority. The two countries have enjoyed close relations since the days when both were members of the Soviet bloc.
