Finland’s missions abroad processed a total of 1,258,999 visa applications in 2011, which is an all-time record high. The figure was up by 23 per cent on the year before. In the past five years the number of visa applications submitted to Finnish missions has more than doubled: in 2006 the number of applications processed totalled 585,181.
Almost 95 per cent of all visa applications were processed by Finland’s four diplomatic missions in Russia. As in previous years the single biggest recipient of visa applications was the Finnish Consulate General in St.Petersburg, which processed 936,620 applications, up 26% from 2010, the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affair’s web site reads.
The Finnish border guard service predicts that up to 50.000 people per day will cross the border to and from Russia in the first days of January 2012, during the Russian’s New Year holidays.
Read also: New record at Salla
Visa application figures were also up sharply up in the Consulate General’s branch offices in Petrozavodsk and Murmansk, which processed 73,833 and 46,364 applications, respectively (up from 59,157 and 29,451 the year before). The Moscow Embassy processed a total of 134,631 applications in 2011, six per cent more than in 2010 (126,963).
Other Finnish missions that received more than 5,000 visa applications in 2011 were the embassies in Kiev (12,932), Bangkok (6,950), Beijing (6,854) and New Delhi (6,414) and the Consulate General in Shanghai (6,748).
Around one per cent of the total number of applications received was rejected.
