Tehran seeks tourism boost as it eases visa restrictions

IRAN will waive visas for Chinese visitors as early as the end of this month in an effort to boost its economy which is faltering under heavy US sanctions.

Tourism officials have said they hope to attract as many as two million Chinese people a year to Iran, a massive increase from the 52,000 who visited last year.

China has the highest number of foreign tourists. Last year, the Chinese made nearly 150million trips abroad, spending £233billion overseas.

Those numbers are expected to grow as more Chinese residents apply for passports. Current figures show only nine per cent of the country’s 1.4 billion people hold passports.

Iran’s economy has been sliding towards recession since Washington reimposed sanctions last November, targeting vital oil exports and international financial transactions.

The Islamic republic’s GDP is expected to shrink by 6 per cent this year, a further slide from last year’s 3.9 per cent contraction. The International Monetary Fund has said that inflation could reach 40 per cent.

In response, Tehran has been looking for other ways to boost its non-oil revenues.

Ali Asghar Mounesan, chief of the Iranian tourism board, told state media in June that tourism was seen as an “unsanctionable sector”.

In a move last August to support the sector, Iran announced that it would no longer stamp visitors’ passports, thereby allowing travellers to bypass a US entry ban on those who have also visited Iran.

China, a partner in the nuclear deal with Iran that the US withdrew from last year, has openly defied the sanctions and continued to buy Iranian oil.

Tehran has threatened to abandon its commitments under the nuclear deal, such as enriched uranium stock limits, unless other countries still party to the nuclear deal – including the UK – help it to circumvent sanctions.