The National Immigration Administration recently announced that three new ports in Zhengzhou, Henan province, and Lijiang and Mohan, Yunnan province will be implementing a 144-hour transit visa-free policy for citizens from foreign countries and their scope of stay will also be expanded.

This has brought the number of Chinese cities implementing the 144-hour visa-free transit policy for foreign tourists to 37. The administration said that it will continue to optimize the visa-free transit policy and further promote the institution-based opening-up of immigration management in a more open manner.

The further expansion of the 144-hour visa-free transit policy will directly facilitate foreign nationals' tourism and business in China, promoting Sino-foreign exchanges and cooperation, and giving more foreigners opportunities to see a more authentic China.

Since the beginning of this year, China's inbound tourism market has been busy, with 14.635 million foreigners arriving in the first half of 2024, up 152.7 percent year-on-year; 8.542 million of the tourists made a visa-free entry, accounting for 58 percent, an increase of 190.1 percent year-on-year. Since 2023, China has experimented with the unilateral visa-free policy for 15 countries such as France and Germany, and added seven countries such as Singapore and Thailand to mutual visa exemption. The payment service for foreign nationals has also been optimized.

The expansion of the 144-hour visa-free transit policy marks a further upgrade of services and increased policy intensity to better facilitate inbound tourism. It will give more foreigners opportunities to come to China and understand China in a more three-dimensional and comprehensive way, ridding them of their prejudice toward China. This will further expand China's high-level opening-up, strengthen cultural exchanges and economic and trade cooperation with other countries.

Because of this opening-up trend, in the first half of this year the e-commerce transaction volume of domestic tourism and entertainment services increased by 23.4 percent year-on-year, and final consumption expenditure contributed 60.5 percent to economic growth, driving GDP growth by 3.0 percentage points. It is believed that potential economic growth areas will be further explored as the opening-up policy intensifies.

An open China is welcomed by foreign tourists too. This way, what China harvests is not only economic returns, but also increased inclusiveness and confidence, which will in turn help open up new horizons for its reform, economic and social development, and economic and trade cooperation with the world.

-BEIJING NEWS