MOSCOW, June 21. /TASS/. Russia and India are working on the start of the visa-free group tourist exchange between the countries, Russian Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov said at a plenary session of the BRICS Tourism Forum.

"Group tour exchanges are a tool of simplifying issues with visas, owing to which we have two problems existing, with China <…> and we also launched this program with Iran. It gave a very strong effect - 450,000 mutual tourist trips. <…> We are also proactively discussing this mechanism with our Indian friends," Reshetnikov said.

Russia is also preparing to cancel visas with a number of countries of the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America, the minister noted. Electronic visas to Russia were launched last year, Reshetnikov added.