日本放宽对华公民个人游签证

从7月1日起，日本放宽对中国公民赴日个人游的签证，特别是对收入门槛大幅放宽，从原来要求个人年薪25万元降至10万元以内。日本政府期望此举能刺激该国低迷的经济。

To attract an increasing number of big-spending Chinese tourists, Japan has relaxed conditions for granting visas to individual Chinese tourists.

Dong Zhaoqing, Manager of Japan and South Korea department at China Comfort Travel Agency in Beijing, says the number of Chinese people traveling to Japan is expected to increase.

"Recently, many customers have called us to get detailed information about the process of visa application. But since the new policy has just taken effect, only two customers applied for individual tourist visas today."

The Japanese government has started to issue tourist visas to Chinese who earn more than 100,000 yuan, or about 14,000 US dollars annually.

That's down sharply from a previous income requirement of 250,000 yuan, nearly 37,000 US dollars per year.

Relatives of those who qualify as tourists can also apply for individual tourist visas.

Currently most Chinese tourists apply for group visas and take package tours to visit Japan. If they hold individual tourist visas, they can visit Japan on their own.

Dong Zhaoqing says the China Comfort Agency will provide more choices in terms of "free travel packages" to those who have individual visas.

"Those who want to travel on their own have different destinations. So we will set different travel routes based on their requirements."

He says the cost for a free travel package to Japan will be at least 50 percent higher than a normal group package, which costs about 6500 Yuan, or 950 US dollars per person.

For Chinese tourists, shopping is the most popular activity while in Japan.

Twenty-eight-year-old Shen Chen, a white-collar worker in Beijing, says she has been to Japan twice.

"I am very interested in Japan because I majored in Japanese when I was a college student. I went to Japan mainly for shopping. I bought many cosmetics and clothes there."

Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada told a press conference earlier that the new visa rule will make the number of Chinese households eligible to visit increase 10-fold to 16 million a year.

Latest report by the Japan National Tourism Organization shows that around 110,000 Chinese visited Japan for business or travel in May, up 86 percent from a year earlier, when Japan began to issue individual Chinese tourist visas.

It is estimated that the number of Chinese tourists heading to Japan will reach 1.5 million this year.