Latest news with #visafree
South China Morning Post
4 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
China's visa-free boom picks up steam as entries soar in first half of 2025
China's expanded efforts to encourage visitors continued to pay off in the first half of 2025, with the number of visa-free foreign entries rising by more than half compared to the same period a year earlier. Foreign nationals made 38 million trips in and out of the country, a 30 per cent increase year on year, according to the administration. 'Visa facilitation measures have effectively attracted large numbers of foreign visitors for tourism and business, driving sustained growth in inbound consumption,' administration spokeswoman Lu Ning said. A previous long-standing policy allowed travellers without a Chinese visa to transit through the country visa-free for up to 24 hours if they held valid travel documents with onwards confirmation to a third country, consistent with international practice. In the 2010s, Chinese cities such as Xiamen and Kunming introduced 72-hour or 144-hour visa-free transit to attract foreign visitors, though travel was restricted within those individual cities. 03:15 What to know: new mainland travel permits for non-Chinese nationals in Hong Kong and Macau What to know: new mainland travel permits for non-Chinese nationals in Hong Kong and Macau
South China Morning Post
11-07-2025
- South China Morning Post
Trump's new tariffs, Hong Kong bomb scare over British cannon barrel: SCMP's 7 highlights
We have selected seven stories from this week's news across Hong Kong, mainland China, the wider Asia region and beyond that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing US President Donald Trump, apparently impatient with the slow progress of negotiations, slapped 25 per cent unilateral tariffs on Japan and South Korea and equal or higher import taxes on several other nations ahead of a self-imposed Wednesday deadline. A cannon barrel has been found at a construction site on Mody Road. Photo: Handout A British-made cannon barrel discovered in Tsim Sha Tsui could date to the 19th century and is the city's first such archaeological find in nearly two decades. The barrel, which prompted the force to temporarily cordon off busy Granville Road and call in explosive disposal experts, was discovered on Mody Road near the west area of Urban Council Centenary Garden in East Tsim Sha Tsui. China's expansion of visa-free entry to nationals from dozens of countries appears to have yielded substantial results, with tourists arriving in droves from overseas and providing a much-needed boost to the country's consumption in the first half of the year.
