Border inspection staff at the Haikou Meilan International Airport in South China's Hainan Province handle visa-free entry procedures for inbound passengers on March 15, 2023. Hainan resumed visa-free transits policy that day and a flight carrying passengers from Singapore arrived at the Meilan airport the same day. Photo: VCG

China continually rolled out measures to facilitate inbound tourism throughout 2023, with the latest example being simplified visa application requirements for travelers from the US. Experts said  that the nation's persistent efforts to promote greater opening-up will heighten its appeal for foreign investment and the impetus will continue to unfold throughout 2024.

On Monday, the Chinese Embassy and Consulates-General in the US started to simplify application documents required for tourist visas (L-visas) in order to further facilitate people-to-people exchanges between the two countries, according to a statement released by the Embassy of China in the US on Saturday.

Tourist visa applicants from the US will no longer be required to submit round-trip air ticket booking records, proof of hotel reservations, their itineraries or invitation letters, read the statement.

It was the second optimization of visa procedures for American tourists in the past three months. In October 2023, the Chinese Embassy in the US issued a notice stating that visa applications would no longer require advance appointments, effective from October 23, 2023.

Facilitating personnel exchanges is mutually beneficial for both countries, spanning from fostering the recovery of the tourism industry and enhancing genuine understanding between populations, to strengthening economic and trade cooperation, Hu Qimu, a deputy secretary-general of the digital-real economies integration Forum 50, told the Global Times on Monday.

China's unwavering commitment to deepening its opening-up is evident in concrete measures, poised to further enhance the attractiveness of the Chinese market for foreign investment, Hu said, adding that "taking US enterprises as an example, they have consistently demonstrated a readiness to invest and expand their presences in China. This is largely attributed to China's vast market, coupled with its well-developed industrial infrastructure and excellence in manufacturing."

In 2023, more than a dozen Chinese embassies have also announced that they will lower visa fees, and the country has also implemented a unilateral visa-free policy for ordinary passport holders from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia on a trial basis. 

Since the implementation of this policy on December 1, 2023, a total of 214,000 individuals from the six countries have entered China, surging 28.5 percent month-on-month. Among them, 118,000 entered without a visa using regular passports, and 91,000 were engaged in sightseeing, leisure activities, and business activities in China, constituting 77.3 percent of those entering with regular passports who don't require a visa, per data from the National Immigration Administration. 

As the new year commences, the surge in interpersonal exchanges is expected to be further enhanced, serving as a continual driving force behind China's attractiveness to foreign investment, experts said

Despite Washington's unwarranted push for "decoupling" from China, American business giants such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Tim Cook still visited China in 2023. They expressed their opposition to decoupling and emphasized their intention to strengthen cooperation.

US carmaker Tesla announced in April 2023 that it would build a Megapack factory in Shanghai. In November 2023, with the opening of a new KFC outlet in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province, the number of KFC stores in the country surpassed 10,000. McDonald's plans to open 3,500 new stores in China over the next four years, and Starbucks has committed to investing $220 million in constructing production and distribution facilities in the eastern region of China, according to media reports.