Transit visa-free brings China closer to the world

On September 10th, china tourism academy released the Report on the High-quality Development of Inbound Tourism in China, which showed that in the first half of 2024, the total number of entry and exit visits of residents and foreigners from China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan by the national immigration authorities recovered to 92% in the same period of 2019, while the number of entry foreigners reached more than 14 million. According to a preliminary estimate, there are about 11 million foreign tourists coming to China, and the recovery and development of inbound tourism in China continues to improve. Especially after the China government implemented the 72/144-hour transit visa-free policy to facilitate the entry and exit of foreign tourists, the "China Travel China Tour" exploded online and offline. It is more convenient for foreign tourists to visit China, and it also brings China closer to the world.

In addition, the relevant departments have further relaxed the conditions for applying for port visas. For foreigners who urgently need to come to China for business, visits and other activities, they can apply for port visas from 100 port visa authorities in 73 cities across the country. Provide foreign business investors with a number of convenient services, such as re-entry visas, so as to ensure that foreign business people can come and stay whenever they want.

The benefits brought by these active policies are multi-faceted. Since the implementation of the visa-free transit policy, although it took only 144 hours to enter China, it still attracted many international tourists from all over the country, making the land of China extremely hot this summer. According to the statistics of the National Immigration Bureau, from January to July this year, the number of foreigners entering the country at various ports was 17.254 million, a year-on-year increase of 129.9%. The number of port visas issued was 846,000, up by 182.9% year-on-year. Its most significant role, according to the average consumption level of foreign tourists in China, is expected to directly stimulate consumption of more than 100 billion yuan.