Foreign passengers arrive at Mohan Station in Yunnan by taking the China Laos Railway cross-border passenger train. Huang Yuanfei took a photo of a popular overseas blogger coming to China. In a one shot live broadcast, when the high-speed rail drilled into the tunnel, there was no lag on the internet, which was praised by overseas netizens; With the upgrading of convenient measures for tax refunds for overseas tourists leaving China, foreign tourists can immediately receive their tax refunds after settling their accounts in more cities and tax refund shops across the country; More and more Chinese and foreign payment systems are fully integrated, allowing foreign nationals to smoothly make payments using their own electronic wallets in China... In order to facilitate foreign nationals coming to China, China has recently introduced a series of measures to promote the facilitation of personnel exchanges between China and foreign countries, attracting more foreign friends to visit Chunri China. Exit tax refund "buy and refund" - "I can't help but 'buy and buy' in China." Recently, at Deji Square in Nanjing, Jiangsu, foreign tourist Ai Rina went to the centralized processing point for exit tax refund "buy and refund" in the shopping mall after purchasing Lego products. She received the refund in just a few minutes, and this convenient shopping experience made her repeatedly like: "The tax can be directly refunded to my account, the speed is really fast, I can't help but 'buy and buy' in China." The State Administration of Taxation recently issued a document clarifying that the "buy and refund" service measure for exit tax refund has been piloted and promoted from multiple places to the whole country, and more and more foreigners feel the changes brought by this convenience measure. What is the 'buy and refund' policy for departure tax refunds? Simply put, it refers to regions in China that have implemented exit tax refund policies. When overseas travelers purchase tax refund items at "buy and refund" stores, they only need to provide credit card pre authorization guarantees to obtain immediate tax refunds at the store. Overseas travelers can release the pre authorization guarantee and complete all departure tax refund procedures upon departure. From now on, overseas travelers can only receive tax refunds after leaving the customs, and now they can receive the tax immediately in the store and use it again for domestic shopping. This service makes the shopping experience of foreigners in China better Professor Wei Xiang from the School of Business at the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told reporters that from international experience, the "buy and refund" policy for tax refunds upon departure is a very convenient and cutting-edge measure. From a macro perspective, this move can significantly increase the scale and level of inbound tourism, effectively improving the structure of service trade; From a micro perspective, it will reduce the cost of commodity transactions at the economic level, enhance the convenience of cultural exchanges, and have a significant effect on improving the efficiency and quality of inbound tourism. At present, China has implemented unilateral visa free access for 38 countries and extended the transit visa free access for 54 countries to 240 hours. With the continuous expansion of the visa free "circle of friends", Chinese inbound tourism continues to heat up. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning stated that in order to make it more convenient for more people to come to China, all Chinese embassies and consulates have completely cancelled visa appointments, and visas for coming to China can be processed at any time. Starting from February 10th this year, tourist groups from ASEAN countries can enter Xishuangbanna, Yunnan without a visa and stay for 6 days. "China's railway and telecommunications network services are great, which really opened my eyes!" Kurt Marcus James from Australia recently traveled with a Thai tourist group to China, and then took the China Laos railway train out of the country. On the train, James was surprised to find that although the train passed through several tunnels in succession, the mobile phone network was very awesome, and there was no jam. According to the relevant person in charge of Yunnan Mohan Border Inspection Station, more than 490000 passengers from 112 countries and regions around the world have taken the international passenger train of China Laos Railway to enter and exit the country since it was put into operation two years ago. Among them, the station has inspected and released more than 415000 inbound and outbound personnel from 10 ASEAN countries, a year-on-year increase of over 24%. Shopping and payment are more convenient - "You can pay with just a scan or touch on your phone". On a bright spring day, on the bustling Beijing Road pedestrian street in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, many shops have long queues of tourists outside. Camille, who came to China for tourism from Malaysia, is planning to buy a few blind boxes as gifts for her children. Kamil took out his mobile phone, opened the electronic wallet he often used in Malaysia, scanned the QR code of Alipay and completed the payment. This time I'm traveling to Guangzhou, I can pay by scanning or touching my phone, it's very convenient, "Camille said. The convenient payment enjoyed by foreigners like Kamil originates from the deep cooperation between China's Alipay platform and Malaysia's eWallet platform. Under the guidance and support of the People's Bank of China and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, in recent years, banks, payment platforms and other parties have cooperated to launch the "external card internal binding" service for foreigners to bind overseas bank cards after downloading the China Payment APP, and the "external outsourcing internal use" service for directly scanning the two-dimensional code of the China Payment APP using overseas electronic wallets. The relevant person in charge of Alipay said that with the cooperation reached with American Express in February this year, Alipay has supported seven international bank cards to bind Alipay for consumption, and the "outsourcing for internal use" service has expanded to 13 overseas wallets from 10 countries and regions. There have been new developments in the optimization services of WeChat Pay recently. The "outsourced internal use" service has been expanded to users of 10 overseas electronic wallets, including Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, and others. It is reported that WeChat Pay is deeply cooperating with UnionPay International and UnionPay to promote the launch of "outsourced internal use" services. In terms of "external card internal binding", more and more users are choosing to use WeChat to bind their seven major international bank cards for "smooth" payments within the country. Card payment is equally convenient. I didn't expect the UnionPay card I applied for in Korea to be very smooth for swiping and withdrawing money in Shanghai. "At Pudong Airport, Korean tourist Ding Mintai experienced the benefits of having a UnionPay card: not only can he swipe his card at duty-free shops, but he can also withdraw money at ATM machines, achieving real-time conversion of Korean won to Chinese yuan. China UnionPay will launch the "Jinxiu Action" in 2024 to continuously improve its payment service system. At present, more than 260 million UnionPay cards have been issued in 83 countries and regions overseas, among which the "Jinxiu Zhonghua Card" is issued to people coming to China, equipped with exclusive card rights for use in China. In addition, about 220 UnionPay standard wallets have been issued in 37 countries and regions overseas. Overseas personnel who come to China to use these cross-border universal UnionPay payment products can enjoy the same card swiping and mobile payment experience as domestic users. With the assistance of the foreign exchange specialist, I successfully completed the exchange of the Kazakhstani currency tenge with the Chinese yuan Jens, a tourist from Kazakhstan, recently arrived at a bank branch near the Jimunai Port in Xinjiang, China to exchange RMB for cash. As a traditional payment method, cash is still the payment habit of some foreigners. Nowadays, in addition to exchanging RMB cash at bank branches, overseas personnel can also withdraw cash from foreign cards at ATM machines. Some places have also launched special services to make it more convenient for foreigners to withdraw cash. For example, Hunan Province has launched the "Remittance Wallet" service in Zhangjiajie, which has the highest number of inbound tourists. It combines the "foreign currency cash exchange" and "local currency change provision" services to solve the temporary and small denomination exchange needs of inbound tourists. By making an appointment through a travel agency, the tour guide can also exchange change for all group members in one go. The attraction of the international consumption center city is great - "I can't wait to look around" American tourist Leon came to Beijing recently. Like many foreigners who came to China for the first time, his mobile phone does not have WeChat or Alipay installed, which makes him worried about his travel in Beijing. Fortunately, after arriving at the capital airport, he found that he could apply for an international card with one card. This is really a universal card, very convenient, "Leon found. With this card, not only can you take the Beijing subway, bus, and taxi, but you can also swipe your card to buy tickets and enter many famous scenic spots in Beijing, and you can also swipe your card to make purchases in some shops. He said, "I can't wait to go around." The similar innovative measures launched by Beijing are a microcosm of some big cities continuing to build international consumption center cities. The General Office of the State Council recently forwarded the Ministry of Commerce's "Several Measures to Support the Cultivation and Construction of International Consumer Center Cities", proposing to support Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Tianjin, and Chongqing in accelerating the cultivation and construction of international consumer center cities and creating a globally attractive consumption environment. According to the data of the Ministry of Commerce, the number of inbound foreigners in five cities last year doubled compared with the previous year, accounting for about 30% of the country. Five cities have launched a series of convenient service measures to meet the payment, shopping, transportation, and other needs of foreign nationals. For example, Shanghai has released an action plan to enhance the level of commercial districts, creating iconic commercial districts such as Nanjing East Road and Huaihai Middle Road, and deploying 90000 external card POS machines; Beijing supports foreign nationals to scan the QR code before entering the country to book and apply for a card. After entering the country, they can quickly pick up their card offline at airport service points or communication service halls; Guangzhou has created a new consumption landmark of Guangzhou Tower Square, opened a multilingual public service hotline, and provided free translation services for foreigners; Tianjin promotes the revitalization and utilization of "small Western style buildings", introducing art curation, cultural creativity and other formats. We are accelerating the opening up to the outside world, actively opening up, and attracting overseas tourists to China with greater efforts Wei Xiang believes that the construction of international consumption center cities is an innovative measure for China to create an international consumption scene, which is conducive to the foreign sales of Chinese goods through inbound tourists and innovative foreign trade methods; Can drive urbanization construction to achieve further structural and quality improvement, and enhance the level of building a first-class city; It also reflects China's policy innovation in promoting the "dual circulation", which unifies foreign trade and domestic trade, and external demand and domestic demand through the optimization and upgrading of urban space. It can be foreseen that the construction of international consumption center cities will form a demonstration effect, promoting the release of vitality and opening up of more cities to the outside world, "Wei Xiang said. (New Society)