Thiruvananthapuram, March 3 (IANS): Two new German visa facilitation centres will open here and in Kochi later this month, a German diplomat said Monday.

The centre in the state capital will be housed at the Technopark campus and the second one will be in Kochi, Joern Rohde, consular general of Germany in Bangalore, told the media here.

"The inauguration will take place March 14 and from then on, all those who wish to travel to Germany will have to apply to any of these two centres for their visa," Rohde said.

He said there has been an increase in the number of people approaching for a visa to travel to Germany from southern India.

"Every year for the past four years there has been a 20 percent growth in the number of applicants intending to travel to Germany from south India. A total of 10 percent of these applicants come from Kerala," Rohde added.

Rohde said that off late there has been an increase in the number of students coming to Germany for higher studies.

"In Germany, now English has become a language for the master's courses and also the fees are much less than in other countries," he added.

He said today there is so much competition among various people for jobs in Germany.

"Language skills in German has become a must now in all areas of jobs and people from numerous countries do apply for jobs and hence there is stiff competition in all sectors," Rohde said.

On probable investments from Germany in Kerala, he said there is huge competition from Indian states to attract investors and it's the companies that make the decision on their investments.

A few years back car major BMW, after raising high hopes of setting up a facility at Kochi, decided otherwise and opened the plant in Chennai.