By Yew Lun Tian and Eduardo Baptista
BEIJING (Reuters) – People joined long queues outside immigration offices in Beijing on Monday, eager to renew their passports after China removed COVID border controls that largely prevented its other 1. 4 billion people from traveling for three years.
Sunday’s reopening is one of the latest steps in China’s dismantling of its “zero-COVID” regime, which began last month after historic anti-restriction protests kept the virus at bay but caused widespread frustration among its people.
As he waits to renew his passport in a line of more than a hundred people in the Chinese capital, 67-year-old retiree Yang Jianguo told Reuters he planned to travel to the United States to see his daughter for the first time in three years. .
“She got married last year, but had to postpone the wedding rite because we couldn’t attend. We are very pleased to be able to pass now,” said Yang, who stood with his wife.
China’s currency and inventory markets strengthened on Monday as investors bet the reopening could reinvigorate a $17 trillion economy suffering its weakest expansion in nearly a century.
Beijing’s resolve to eliminate quarantine needs for visitors is expected to encourage travel, as citizens will not face such restrictions upon return.
But flights are rare and several countries require visitors from China to test negative, implying an outbreak that is affecting many Chinese hospitals and crematoria. China also requires negative COVID controls before travelers leave.
China’s most sensible fitness officials and state media have said COVID infections are peaking across the country and downplaying the risk now posed by the disease.
“Life is moving forward again!” wrote the Communist Party’s official newspaper, the People’s Daily, in an editorial Sunday praising the government’s policy on the virus, which it said had shifted from “preventing infections” to “preventing serious diseases. “
“Today, the virus is weak, we are stronger. “
Officially, China has reported 5272 COVID-19-related deaths as of January 8, one of the lowest infection death rates in the world.
But the World Health Organization said China underestimates the scale of the outbreak and foreign virus experts estimate more than a million people in the country could die from the disease this year.
Ignoring those gloomy forecasts, Asian stocks hit a five-month high on Monday, while the Chinese yuan strengthened to its opposite point to the dollar since mid-August.
China’s blue-chip index gained 0. 7%, while the Shanghai Composite Index rose 0. 5% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 1. 6%.
“The end of the zero-COVID policy will have a primary positive effect on domestic performance,” UBS Group Chief Executive Ralph Hamers said Monday at the Swiss bank’s annual Greater China convention.
“There are many opportunities for those who are dedicated to making an investment in China. “
“GREAT RELIEF”
“It’s a great relief to be able to get back to normal. . . just go back to China, get off the plane, take a taxi and go home,” Michael Harrold, 61, an editor in Beijing, told Reuters. airport on Sunday after arriving on a flight from Warsaw.
Harrold said he planned to have to quarantine and do several rounds of testing upon his return when he left for Europe for the Christmas break in early December.
State broadcaster CCTV reported Sunday that direct flights from South Korea to China were nearly full. The report has temporarily become the most widely read article on Chinese social media Weibo.
In the short term, an increase in passenger demand will be hampered by the number of flights to and from China, which are recently at a small fraction of pre-COVID levels.
Flight Master data showed that on Sunday, China had a total of 245 inbound and outbound flights, up from 2546 same-day flights in 2019, a 91 percent drop.
Korean Air said earlier this month it was finalizing a plan to develop flights to China because of Seoul’s cautious stance toward Chinese travelers. South Korea, like many other countries, now asks travelers from China, Macau and Hong Kong who provide negative COVID results to check effects before departure.
Taiwan, which began testing arrivals from China on Jan. 1, said Monday that only about 20 percent of those tested so far tested positive for COVID.
China’s domestic tourism earnings in 2023 are expected to reach 70-75% of pre-COVID degrees, but the number of inbound and outbound travel is expected to reach only 30-40% of pre-COVID degrees this year, China News reported. .
(Reporting by Yew Lun Tian, Liz Lee, Josh Arslan, Eduardo Baptista and Sophie Yu in Beijing; Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Writing through John Geddie; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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