Visas for citizens of China and Thailand will be permanently waived starting in March
Beijing: According to Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, China and Thailand will permanently remove the need for visas for each other’s nationals starting in March.
In September, China’s visitors were granted entrance privileges till February of this year, a significant boost to the tourism industry in the second-biggest economy in Southeast Asia.
Reporters were informed by Srettha that “this will upgrade the relationship between the two countries.”
According to China’s foreign ministry, both nations are promoting people-to-people relations by voluntarily removing the need for visas.
Speaking at a routine briefing, ministry spokeswoman Wang Wenbin said, “competent authorities of both sides are communicating closely on the matter and we are looking forward to the implementation of the relevant arrangement.”
Thailand had 28 million international visitors in 2023, just above its goal, and earned 1.2 trillion baht ($34.93 billion) in income, according to official figures.
Of them, Malaysia accounted for the largest source market with 4.5 million arrivals, followed by China with 3.5 million.
In contrast, the pre-COVID record was at 39 million arrivals, of which 11 million were from China.
