REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The Indonesian government plans to extend its visa-free facility to another 45 countries in a bid to increase the number of recipients to 90 this year.

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya confirmed here on Tuesday that the plan was initially scheduled for implementation next year, but it was expedited following the deregulation launched by President Joko Widodo on September 1.

"The number of countries to receive the new visa-free facility to visit Indonesia is 45, while 45 others have already received it. The signing of a presidential decree to that effect is now still being processed. It is hoped to come into effect by the end of this year," he affirmed.

The minister pointed out that depending on the concerned countries, the facility could increase the number of tourist arrivals by five to 25 percent.

Based on the evaluation, the initial phase of implementation of the visa-free facility has been able to increase the number of foreign tourists from 30 countries by 15 percent, while an overall increase of 2.9 percent was recorded.

Minister Arief affirmed that the facility was expected to boost the performance of the tourism sector and attract up to 20 million foreign tourists by 2019.

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