The National Immigration Administration announced on Tuesday that as of that day it would relax and optimize the transit visa-free policy, extending the stay period of foreigners with transit visa-free status from the original 72 hours or 144 hours to 240 hours. At the same time, 21 new ports have been added as entry and exit ports for visa-free transit, and the stay and activity area have been further expanded too.

From January to November 2024, 29.21 million foreigners entered the country, an increase of 86.2 percent year-on-year; 17.45 million of them took advantage of the transit visa exemption policy to visit the country, an increase of 123.3 percent year-on-year.

After nearly a year of practice, it has been proved that the visa-free policy has attracted a large number of international tourists to see the real China.

Yet many overseas tourists said that even six days were not enough for them to travel around such a large country as China. Now, with 10 days, they can visit more places.

Traditionally, openness through agreements is an important basis for opening up to the outside world. However, at present, unilateralism and trade protectionism have had a serious impact on the world economy, and economic globalization faces many uncertainties. In this context, it is more difficult to open up through agreements.

As the world's second-largest economy, China is committed to promoting economic globalization and international cooperation through unilateral opening-up, which is also conducive to promoting its own high-quality development and the building of an open economy.

Expanding unilateral opening-up is also China's consistent policy toward the least developed countries. Based on its large domestic market, China has accelerated its unilateral opening-up to the least developed countries.

China's unilateral opening-up has been precisely promoted on the basis of various opening-up platforms established over the past years, rather than carried out in a casual manner. For example, its manufacturing industry has been fully opened up, while there is still room for more high-level service industry opening-up and institutional opening-up.

The country, which has applied to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement, will establish more opening-up platforms and areas in light of the requirements of these partnerships to further expand its unilateral opening-up to prepare for joining these high-level multilateral agreements in the future.

21ST CENTURY BUSINESS HERALD