UK launches two-year visitor visas

[Photo by Zhang Guilan/China Daily]

The new Chinese visitor visa will provide eligible Chinese customers with a better deal than the standard Schengen visitor visa, which is limited to a maximum 90 days.

The two-year visitor visa will be available for the purposes of tourism, business, conferences or investigations into setting up businesses.

The Home Office announcement also says increasing numbers of British citizens are visiting China and will now benefit from these same arrangements, with China reducing its two-year visitor visa fee to the equivalent of 85 pounds (an additional service fee will still be charged) and, for the first time, matching Britain's offer of a 10-year visitor visa.

There are also plans to extend the UK's mobile fingerprinting service, which records the biometrics needed for applications, from nine to 50 Chinese cities.

In the year ending September 2015, Britain issued 484,065 visas in China, a 20 percent increase on the previous year, 404,084 of which were visitor visas - a 22 percent increase.