Visa-free policy can consolidate people-to-people exchanges

China's inbound travel bookings for the five-day May Day holiday increased by 130 percent year-on-year.

The National Immigration Administration predicted in late April that the average daily number of people entering and leaving China's ports during the five-day holiday would reach 1.76 million, an increase of 40.5 percent over the same period last year. The recovery and fast growth of the number of inbound and outbound visits is to a large extent attributed to the optimization of national exit and entry policies by China in the past year.

On Nov 24, China decided to implement a de facto unilateral visa-free policy for ordinary passport holders from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia from Dec 1, 2023, to Nov 30, 2024. On March 14, the country extended the same policy to Switzerland, Ireland, Hungary, Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg from March 14 to Nov 30. In the first quarter of this year, China introduced a series of entry-exit policy measures to facilitate foreigners' access to China by expanding visa-free entry for certain foreign nationals, while vigorously improving governance and services. As a result, China saw more than 141 million inbound and outbound travels in the first quarter, an increase of 117.8 percent year-on-year, which also exceeded the full-year entry and exit flows in any of the three years during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The continuous optimization of exit and entry policies has greatly facilitated cross-border personnel exchanges, making international exchanges and cooperation increasingly frequent. It has not only strengthened economic ties between countries, but also enhanced the mutual understanding and integration of different cultures, promoted the prosperity of tourism and lubricated the overall economic and social development. Greater entry and exit optimization policies adopted by some major Chinese cities have also resulted in a significant increase in their entry-exit personnel flows in the first quarter of this year.

China's determination to advance reform and opening-up remains unwavering and it will only open up wider to the rest of the world. During the top leader's recent visit to France, a decision was taken to further extend the visafree policy for short-term visits to China to 12 European countries until the end of 2025. This will further boost personnel exchanges between China and these countries.

-THEPAPER.CN