Emiratis to get visa-free travel to China next month
Emiratis will soon be able to enjoy visa-free travel to China thanks to an agreement signed between the UAE and China on Tuesday.
The deal exempts UAE nationals carrying regular passports from obtaining pre-entry visas, with the possibility of staying for up to 30 days on each visit, starting from January 16, next year.
“The move by the Chinese government reflects the stature attained by the UAE and contributes to strengthening relations and opening new avenues for growing tourism and trade between the two friendly countries,” said Ahmed Al Dhaheri, assistant undersecretary for consular affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation.
“The UAE has become a model for good governance, moderation and peaceful co-existence and a symbol for achievement and excellence at international level.”
The UAE and China established diplomatic relations in November 1984. In 1987 the UAE opened its first embassy in Beijing followed by consulates in Hong Kong in 2000, Shanghai in 2006 and in Guangzhou last year.
In turn, China opened its embassy in Abu Dhabi in April 1985 and its consulate in Dubai in November 1988.
The UAE is an increasingly popular destination for Chinese tourists, with between 800,000 and a million visiting the country this year, up from 600,000 in 2016 and 450,000 in 2015.
In contrast, only 10,000 Emiratis visited China this year, the Chinese embassy said.
In September, China opened its first Middle East visa application centre in Dubai.
The country has been Dubai’s biggest trading partner since 2014 and the second-largest trading partner of the UAE as a whole since 2011.
Trade between the two countries stood at $45 billion (Dh165.2bn) last year, and Chinese companies have increased ties with secure and stable countries in the Middle East, such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia, in recent years. Thirteen Chinese cities, including Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, as well as Taipei in neighbouring Taiwan, are connected to Dubai by more than 100 flights a week.
UAE residents are able to get a taste of Chinese trading culture at Dubai’s Dragon Mart Mall, the world’s largest Chinese trading centre outside China. The huge mall hosts 120,000 visitors a day and of its 5,000 shops, more than 1,700 are run by Chinese retailers.
Dr Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, chairman of the Arab Council for Social Sciences, said there was a mutual recognition of the strategic, commercial and economic importance of the Sino-UAE relationship.
“China is very important to the UAE just as the UAE is becoming very important to China,” he said.
He said China looked at west Asia in general, the Gulf region, and understood that the UAE was central and key to it, economically.
“So there is this great recognition on both sides about the strategic value and this is the driving force behind the two coming together and signing more agreements than we have seen in the past 30 to 40 years,” he said.
“I think we’re going to see a lot more of it, too.”