China to start issuing passports for tourism from Jan 8, ease border restrictions

China's immigration authorities have said that they will start receiving applications for issuing passports for tourism and visits abroad beginning January 8, NHK World reported.

On Monday, the Chinese government announced plans to ease border restrictions and resume overseas visits in an orderly manner as per the international COVID-19 situation. As per the NHK World report, Chinese media has said that access to major online travel sites for bookings to popular destinations, including Japan and Thailand increased ten-fold after the government's announcement.

Meanwhile, China has imposed a ban on such agencies from accepting bookings of group tours and giving sales of package tours, according to NHK World. China will lift the travel restrictions from January 8, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said on Wednesday.

The CAAC said that it will resume international passenger traffic, according to Global Times. According to the new policies released on the official website of the CAAC, China will stop designating inbound high-risk flights and call an end to the 75 per cent restriction for passenger capacity on inbound flights.

Chinese and foreign airlines will arrange scheduled passenger flights in line with bilateral agreements. The CAAC said that it will gradually resume applications for chartered international passenger flights, as per the Global Times report.

It will also cancel measures impacting inbound flights, including closed-loop management of domestic and overseas crews, COVID testing and quarantine. According to Global Times, new measures have been introduced to optimize anti-COVID management, as the government downgraded management of COVID-19 to Class B, and cancelled quarantine requirements on inbound travellers from January 8, 2023.

( With inputs from ANI )