Authorities in China are discussing details with Singapore regarding the bilateral visa-free agreement, which move has been considered by Beijing’s embassy that will serve to boost arrivals in the city-state.
According to a Reuters report, there were a total of 3.6 million Chinese visitors to Singapore before the spread of the Coronavirus and its new variants in 2019, who spent as of S$4.1 billion, VisaGuide.World reports.
The same says that among four million citizens as well as permanent residents, three-quarters are Chinese ethnicity while the majority of them speak Mandarin, thus making it easy for Chinese to navigate the country.
“It is something that citizens of both territories are eagerly awaiting and is also a shared concern for the leaders of both states,” a spokesperson for China’s embassy in Singapore pointed out in this regard.
Currently, travelers from China are required to apply for visas in order to visit Singapore.
Citizens of Singapore were permitted 15-day visa-free visits before the spread of the Coronavirus and its new strains. The same arrangement has yet to be reinstated, according to a Reuters report, which has led to lengthy queues at the Chinese visa application center in Singapore.
Sun Haiyan, the Chinese ambassador to Singapore last month through a post on Facebook said:
“Hope that the competent authorities of the two sides can achieve positive results as soon as possible.”
Earlier this year, a Singapore Tourism Board executive said that the country is welcoming back tourists from China; however, a full return of Chinese tourists is not going to be seen this year.
According to the Singapore Tourism Board’s CEO, Keith Tan, the speed of China’s border reopening and the limited flight capacities are among the reasons why a complete recovery of Chinese tourists is not set to happen this year.
Based on a CNBC report, travel recovery in China is unlikely to surpass 60 percent of pre-pandemic levels until the end of this year.
“We are hoping to get, for the whole year 2023, between 30 percent to 60 percent of where we were in comparison to the whole year pre-pandemic,” he noted. “In our most ambitious and aggressive scenarios, we hope that things will be almost back to normal by the end of this year.”
The same source noted that at present, the total number of flights from China is only ten percent of what was seen before the pandemic. When it comes to China, Singapore didn’t follow the example of other countries and imposed restrictions on travelers from China.
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