Good News! Saudi Arabia Applicable New Rules Of Umrah 2023, No More Quota Limits

Director of Umrah and Special Hajj of the Ministry of Religion Nur Arifin (left)/Via ANTARA

JAKARTA - Director of Umrah and Special Hajj of the Ministry of Religion, Nur Arifin, said the Government of Saudi Arabia imposed a number of new rules in the implementation of Umrah 1444 Hijri/2023 AD. "The Saudi policy in organizing Umrah also leads to a business to customer or B to C scheme," said Nur Arifin in a written statement received in Jakarta, Antara, Tuesday, September 20. Nur made this statement when holding a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with the Association of Umrah Travel Organizers (PPIU). A number of points were discussed, such as the role of PPIU, meningitis vaccines and plane tickets. Nur said the new rules imposed by Saudi Arabia regarding the no longer limit on Umrah quotas, no longer need to use Umrah visas or may with other types of visas. In addition, the visa application process also does not have to go through providers in Indonesia, PPIU can directly deal with Saudi Arabian providers. "The policy is oriented as part of the stages of implementing Saudi vision 2030," said Nur. This policy, said Nur, needs to be responded to and mitigated if it has the potential to raise problems in organizing Umrah in Indonesia, including the need to discuss a number of domestic problems, such as the problem of meningitis vaccines that had arisen in Surabaya, as well as the high price of tickets. "Details of this issue were discussed together in this FGD to get recommendations for future improvements," he said. Meanwhile, the Head of the Umrah Supervision Sub-Directorate Noer Alya Fitra said related to the B to C scheme, in the FGD it was agreed that according to the regulations, the implementation of Umrah was mandatory through PPIU. "The Ministry of Religion and PPIU will carry out intensive socialization related to this regulation," said Alya. Meanwhile, regarding the limited number of meningitis vaccines, said Alya, the Ministry of Health has responded, among others, to reallocate the distribution of the availability of meningitis vaccines in accordance with the distribution of the population of Umrah pilgrims per province and the acceleration of the procurement of new vaccines that will be available in the near future. As for a number of the results of the Ministry of Religion's FGD discussions with the PPIU Association regarding the risk mitigation of Umrah problems, among them, the implementation of Umrah must comply with the regulation of Law 8/2019 and Law 11/2020, that Umrah Travel is mandatory through PPIU. Then, the provisions regarding the implementation of Umrah pilgrimages must be carried out by PPIU, it needs to be socialized intensively and massively by the government together with PPIU. The current mereallocation of availability of meningitis vaccines by distributing vaccines according to the distribution of Umrah pilgrims to each province. Then, accelerate the provision of 22,000 vaccines of meningitis, which is planned to be available in October 2022, in collaboration with producers to independently produce meningitis vaccines in the country. Coordinate with ITAGI (Indonesian Expert Advisory Committee for Immunization) regarding the latest recommendations and studies on vaccinations, among others, propose extending the duration of vaccine protection from 2 years to 3-5 years (according to the vaccine brand).