South Korea is lifting today the entry restrictions imposed on short-term travelers from China since the beginning of 2023, citing the stability of the COVID-19 situation as the main reason for the relaxation of restrictive measures imposed on its neighboring country.
Seoul stopped issuing short-term visas to Chinese nationals in early January under claims that increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases were occurring in the country, which is unfortunate, considering that China had lifted its Coronavirus restrictions a month prior, VisaGuide.World reports.
However, now that South Korea is planning to allow Chinese travelers again, they have to provide proof of a negative test taken within 48 hours of departure and also will have to get tested again upon arrival. The same measures apply to arrivals from Hong Kong and Macao.
During this period, South Korea did allow the extension of existing visas, and also continued to issue short-term visas for essential government, business, diplomatic and humanitarian reasons.
“China will actively consider taking the reciprocal approach of resuming the issuance of short-term visas for South Korean citizens. We hope the ROK [Republic of Korea] will work with us to provide more convenience for the normal flow of people between the two sides,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning noted.
Regardless, the return of Chinese travelers is actually great news for several countries, especially neighboring countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and Hong Kong, with the latter being a top destination for Chinese nationals. While Hong Kong could see a 7.6 percent boost in its GDP, CNN Business reports that Thailand’s GDP could increase by 2.9 per cent while Singapore would get a surge of 1.2 percent.
On the other hand, many countries, including Germany, Japan, France, Canada, Australia and the United States, just like South Korea, want to keep in place the requirement for Chinese arrivals to test in order to enter these territories.
Recently, the European Union called on all its 27 member states to impose the requirement for a COVID-19 test for visitors from China.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the total number of positive cases of COVID-19 in China has surpassed 98 million, and 159,903 of those have been recorded in the last seven days. In addition, the number of deaths due to COVID-19 has reached 504 during this same period, taking the total number of fatalities to 117,794.
As per total vaccine doses administered, China has 235.52 doses administered per 100 inhabitants while the number of persons fully vaccinated per 100 inhabitants stands at 86.62. In addition, the number of people that have received a booster shot per 100 inhabitants in China has reached 54.7.
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