China Perspective

Japan to relax restrictions on tourist visas for Chinese

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-05-10 15:16
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TOKYO - The Japanese government plans to relax the restrictions on income conditions for granting visas to individual Chinese tourists as of July 1 in a bid to attract more Chinese to Japan, Kyodo News reported Monday, citing government officials.

Under the plan, Japan will lower the threshold of an annual income of 250,000 yuan ($36,603) for an individual Chinese tourist to 60,000 yuan ($8,785), said the officials.

And the government will make decisions to issue individual tourist visas by comprehensively judging applicants' income and employment status.

According to statistics released by the Japan Tourism Agency, the number of Chinese tourist arrivals stood at 1.01 million in 2009, up by 0.6 percent year-on-year.