necessary, acquire a re-entry one at the relevant national consulate while they are traveling abroad.295 Uzbekistan allows stateless persons and other foreigners to acquire an entry visa on their arrival at Tashkent airport.296 Each State charges stateless persons a fee for issuing a visa. In some it is a flat-rate and in others a sliding scale. Each is significant and might deter a stateless person from exercising their right to travel. The cost of an exit visa from Tajikistan, for example, equals the average minimum wage and doubles in cases of urgency. The duty is deducted while the application is being processed, and is nonreturnable if the application fails. No reasons need be given for rejection of an application. A multiple re-entry visa from Tajikistan costs twice as much as a single-entry visa.297 In Uzbekistan, stamp duty is the equivalent of 20 US dollars for processing a one-month exit visa and 200 US dollars for a one-year exit visa.298 Stamp duty in Kazakhstan is expressed as a percentage of a monthly public tax index. The cost of an exit visa from Kazakhstan is 50% of this index, and the cost of renewing a visa, is 100%. A multiple re-entry visa costs 200% of the index.299 The Certificates, or Cards, that are issued to identify Stateless Persons are sufficiently robust to carry visas, according to government representatives of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan that attended the UNHCR conference on statelessness in Ashgabat in December 2009. In some Central Asian States, the cards have security features, intended to prevent forgery. In Tajikistan, for instance, these include computerised print, customised paper and machine-readable text.300 In Kazakhstan, Stateless Persons’ Cards follow the same format as the national passport. They include pages for electronic data and visas; parallel print in Kazakh and English; and are in a format that complies with standards for international travel.301 Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan302 are also in the process of developing ICAO compliant biometric Travel Documents for stateless persons. Generally, stateless persons told UNHCR that other States did not recognise their statelessness documentation as valid, or a basis for issuing visas. Apart from the cost of their visas this may be the single largest deterrent to travel for persons officially recognised as stateless. At a meeting with stateless persons in Ashgabat, UNHCR learned of one stateless woman who had been able to travel visa-free to the foreign university where she was enrolled on the basis of a Stateless Person’s Card issued by the State Migration Service of Turkmenistan. To UNHCR’s knowledge, most stateless persons in the region are undocumented and therefore unable to exercise their right to travel. It seems in practice, that the five Central Asian states generally issue a stateless person’s certificate and, when required, an exit visa to someone who is leaving State territory visa for 3 months costs 10 times the tax calculation index. Extension for one year costs 25 times the index, according to the 1994 Law No 521 ‘On Stamp Duty Rates’ of Kyrgyzstan. 295 Article 11, 1996 Order No 486 ‘On the Entry and Exit of Foreigners in Uzbekistan’; Article 7.1, 2009 Rules No 122 ‘On Visa issue for Foreigners and Stateless Persons’ in Tajikistan; Article 10, 2003 Regulation No 6135 ‘On the Entry and Exit of Foreigners’ in Turkmenistan; Article 6, 2000 Rules No 136 ‘On the Entry and Stay of Foreigners in the Republic of Kazakhstan, and also their Exit from the Republic of Kazakhstan’. 296 Article 12, 1996 Order No 486 ‘On the Entry and Exit of Foreigners in Uzbekistan’. 297 Articles 4(2) and 4(5), 2006 Law No 217 ‘On State Stamp Duty’ of Tajikistan; Articles 6.3, 6.1 and 6.6 of 2009 Rules No 122 ‘On Visa Issue for Foreigners and Stateless Persons in Tajikistan’. 298 2008 Cabinet of Ministers Order No 13 ‘On Amending Cabinet of Ministers’ Instruction No 423, August 1993 ‘On Rates of Stamp Duty’ in Uzbekistan, www.mvd.uz/ru/content/296. 299 The ‘Raschetnyi Pokazatel’. Article 538(1) and (2), Section XIX, 2008 Tax Code of Kazakhstan No 99-IV ‘On Taxes and Compulsory Payments to the State Budget’. 300 Article 10.10, 2009 Rules No 122 ‘On Visa Issue for Foreigners and Stateless Persons’ in Tajikistan. 301 See Paragraphs 1 and 10 in the Sample Stateless Person’s Card, as approved by the Decree of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan No 1235, dated 24 December 2008. 302 ‘Uzbekistan starts application of biometric passport system’, 6 January 2011, available at http://en.trend.az/news/politics/1807184.html. ~ 44 ~