Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin Photo: fmprc.gov.cn

China's telecom operators have taken steps to upgrade their service in multiple Chinese cities to help foreign visitors, in line with the country's high-quality opening-up and international personnel exchange promotions, Chinese Foreign Ministry (FM) said on Wednesday. 

Wang Wenbin, spokesperson for the FM, made the remark during a regular press conference, noting that as China will keep upgrading its cross-border personnel exchange policy, and Chinese citizens could travel abroad safely and conveniently, and foreigners can travel, work, study and live in China more easily than ever before.  

The ministry said that in order to help foreign visitors to have domestic mobile phone number, China's three state-owned telecom operators, including China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom, have added more service sites at airports and venues with more international engagement across multiple major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Kunming in Southwest China's Yunnan Province, and Qingdao in East China's Shandong Province.

"Recently, China has implemented series of visa simplification measures, such as reducing or removing fees and personal information collection procedures, as well as unilateral visa-free policies to countries such as France and Germany," Wang said. 

To date, China has signed bilateral visa-free policies for various types of passports with 157 countries, reached visa simplification agreement with 44 countries and bilateral visa-free agreement with 23 countries, said Wang. 

With the 2024 Spring Festival around the corner, Wang welcomed more foreign friends to visit China, and explore the real China with their own eyes and ears, Wang noted.

Global Times