Xinhua News | Add 6 more countries! Visa free "Moments" expansion conveys a strong signal of China's opening up

2024-03-14

Starting from March 14th, China will pilot visa free policies for individuals holding ordinary passports from six countries: Switzerland, Ireland, Hungary, Austria, Belgium, and Luxembourg. This is the second expansion of China's visa free "Moments" after the China Thailand Mutual Visa Free Agreement officially came into effect on the 1st of this month. According to relevant arrangements, from March 14 to November 30, 2024, individuals from six countries including Switzerland holding ordinary passports who come to China for business, tourism, visiting relatives and friends, and transit for no more than 15 days are eligible for visa free entry. Individuals from the aforementioned countries who do not meet the visa exemption requirements still need to apply for a visa to China before entering the country. As of early March, China has concluded visa exemption agreements covering different passports with 157 countries and simplified visa procedures agreements or arrangements with 44 countries. Including Singapore, Antigua and Barbuda, and Thailand, which have signed visa free agreements with China since the beginning of this year, 23 countries have achieved comprehensive visa free arrangements with China. In addition, more than 60 countries and regions offer visa free or visa on arrival treatment to Chinese citizens. Swiss businessman Leon runs a tourism service company in Geneva with many Chinese partners. He said that after China's visa exemption for Switzerland takes effect, it will be more convenient to visit friends or negotiate cooperation meetings in China. I believe there will be more Swiss people like me who plan to travel to China. For a period of time, China has been continuously implementing multiple visa optimization measures, including reducing the content of visa application forms, periodically reducing visa fees, simplifying the approval procedures for studying in China, exempting some applicant fingerprints, exempting visa appointments, and implementing visa free policies for some countries, further solving the difficulties and bottlenecks of foreign personnel coming to China. During this year's Spring Festival, the number of inbound tourists to China reached 3.23 million, with a significant increase in countries such as France, Germany, Malaysia, and Singapore that are eligible for visa free entry. The total number of inbound tourism orders for these countries during the Spring Festival has doubled compared to the same period in 2019. The Chinese side is also continuously launching a series of practical measures to make "foreigners" live conveniently and feel at home. In order to better meet the diverse payment service needs of groups including foreign visitors to China, the "Opinions on Further Optimizing Payment Services and Enhancing Payment Convenience" was officially released on March 7, proposing a series of requirements in improving the bank card acceptance environment, continuously optimizing the cash usage environment, and enhancing the convenience of mobile payments. In addition, the People's Bank of China has guided Alipay and Tenpay to optimize their business processes and improve the efficiency of binding overseas bank cards in view of the practical problems encountered by foreigners in using mobile payments; Simplify identity verification arrangements while effectively protecting personal information security; Guide major payment institutions to increase the single transaction limit for foreign personnel using mobile payments in China from $1000 to $5000, and increase the annual cumulative transaction limit from $10000 to $50000. In various scenes closely related to people's lives, such as food, housing, transportation, tourism, shopping, entertainment, and medicine, small actions to connect the "last mile" reflect the consideration of continuously improving international service levels and promoting civil exchanges between China and foreign countries. Continuously improving the convenience of domestic and foreign personnel exchanges and foreign personnel living in China, taking into account

Edit:Yi Jing    Responsible editor:Li Nian

Source:XinhuaNet

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