CHINA OFFERS VISA-FREE VISIT TO HAINAN
New policy will start next month, open to travellers from 59 nations for 30-day stay
CHINA unveiled plans yesterday to permit visa-free travel to its southern island of Hainan as Beijing pushes international tourism to the tropical destination in another step to open up the region.
The new policy would start next month and allow travellers from 59 countries to visit Hainan for 30 days visa-free, said Qu Yunhai, deputy director of the State Immigration Administration at a press conferene here.
Among the countries to be included in the programme were Russia, the United States, France, Britain and Germany, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
The new rule will give Hainan less stringent visa requirements than in the rest of China, where travellers have to apply for visas through Chinese consulates abroad.
The policy “embodies our resolve and approach to move one step further to opening to the outside world”, said Qu.
The liberalisation comes as part of a package of reforms to remake the island as a free trade zone and a beacon of openness for China.
On Monday, China announced it would allow Hainan to develop horse racing and explore opening new types of lotteries connected to sports and international competitions.
Beijing also said it wanted to position Hainan as a “centre of international tourism consumption”, a goal which had faced slow progress despite sandy beaches and massive spending on plush resorts.
The province attracted fewer than a million foreign visitors in 2016, compared with more than seven million in Thailand’s Phuket, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News.