Many of China’s zero-COVID policies were dropped in December of last year, but the country didn’t resume issuing tourist visas until March….reports Asian Lite News
The citizens of Singaporeans and Bruneians will once again be able to enter China without a visa for a period of 15 days from Wednesday (July 26), more than three years after the arrangement was put on hold due to the COVID-19 outbreak, reported Channel NewsAsia (CNA).
Singaporean and Bruneian nationals with regular passports will be able to enter China without a visa for transit, business, sightseeing, and visits to friends and family, the embassies announced in announcements posted to their websites on Sunday, as per CNA. Channel NewsAsia, is a Singapore multinational news channel owned by the country’s national public broadcaster Mediacorp.
The embassy in Singapore also said that it was “confident that more measures to facilitate people-to-people exchange between China and Singapore will be unveiled in the future.”
The reinstatement was welcomed by Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), according to CNA.
“This will facilitate people and business flows between our countries and pave the way for deeper bilateral cooperation, especially following the upgrade in Singapore-China relations to an All-Round High-Quality Future-Oriented Partnership earlier this year during Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s visit to Beijing,” said MFA in a Facebook post on Sunday.
Many of China’s zero-COVID policies were dropped in December of last year, but the country didn’t resume issuing tourist visas until March.
Singapore Deputy Peime Minister Lawrence Wong expressed optimism that China would reinstate the visa-free policy for Singaporeans on his first official visit to China in May, CNA reported.
The policy was reinstated more than three years after it had been put on hold by the Chinese government at the beginning of the pandemic.
The modification will strengthen Singapore’s position as possessing the strongest passport in the world, which it now holds above Japan with 192 visa-free countries, according to the most recent Henley Passport Index.(ANI)