South Koreans might soon be able to travel to China, as the latter is planning to lift its ban on issuing short-term visas on Saturday, February 18.
According to the Chinese embassy in Seoul, the decision follows reciprocal measures applied by South Korea to China as well as an improved COVID-19 situation in the Asian country that has been applying particularly stringent measures during the pandemic, VisaGuide.World reports.
Initially, China introduced a ban on short-term visa issuance for South Koreans, following the latter’s decision to impose several COVID restrictions on Chinese nationals after Beijing’s swift decision to end its COVID policy.
The decision to curb short-term visas by both South Korea and Japan wasn’t received as well by the Chinese government, which considered it a discriminatory measure.
The first move the Chinese embassy in South Korea took was to announce the suspension of short-term visa issuance, and the authority also noted that it would change its policy when South Korea removes its entry restrictions.
In addition, the embassy of China in Japan pointed out similar things, also noting that Japanese nationals would also be subject to such restrictions, and there was no deadline when the measure would expire.
On the other hand, South Korea had planned to introduce more stringent visa requirements until the end of February but started issuing visas last week, citing the reduced number of COVID cases among Chinese arrivals.
During the last month, entry restrictions for Chinese nationals weren’t being imposed by Asian countries like South Korea and Japan but by European countries, too. More specifically, Latvia, Greece, Germany and the Netherlands introduced similar restrictions and also required all travellers from China to present a pre-departure COVID test in order to be permitted in the country.
According to WHO, the World Health Organization, a total of 135,157 positive cases of COVID-19 were recorded in China during the last seven days, which takes the total number of infection cases to 98,836,691. In addition, the number of deaths by COVID-19 has reached 119,023 in total, with 1,336 of those being recorded in the last week alone.
Furthermore, the total number of vaccine doses administered per 100 inhabitants is 235.52, while the number of people fully vaccinated with the last dose or primary series per 100 inhabitants is 86.62, which indicates a high vaccination rate among Chinese nationals.
In addition, the number of people that have received a booster shot for 100 inhabitants in the Chinese territory has reached 54.7.
The post China to Start Reissuing Short-Term Visas to South Koreans in February appeared first on VisaGuide.World.
