China to ease restrictions on issuing passports

BEIJING: China plans to ease restrictions on issuing new passports, amid reports of a big surge in the number of its citizens travelling abroad for tourism and studies.

The Ministry of Public Security announced today that China will ease a restriction covering the household registration that people must hold when applying for passports in six big cities.

Those who work or study at higher education institutions in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen will soon be allowed to apply for passports and travel passes there, even if they do not hold household registrations, the ministry said in a statement.

The new policy will take effect from September 1, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Currently, every Chinese must apply for a passport or travel pass to police in the area, where he or she is registered in a household. That causes great trouble for people who leave their hometown but do not transfer their household registration locations.

If a person has requisite documents, police will issue passport within 30 days of an application being made. If the application is turned down, the applicant will need to apply for reconsideration in his household registration location, the statement said.

The policy is part of a number of efforts to facilitate people's travel abroad, it said.

The passport rules are relaxed as in the first half of this year about 38 million Chinese travelled abroad, a year-on-year increase of 18 per cent, the National Tourism Administration said.

According to the World Tourism Organisation, the number of overseas tours made by Chinese will surge from 70 million last year to 100 million by the end of the decade, from just 5 million 15 years ago.

State-run CCTV reported that China's travellers are emerging as high spenders.

The Chinese travellers spent over USD 50 billion abroad in 2010 and more than USD 70 billion last year, compared with USD 84 billion spent by Germans and USD 79 billion by Americans in 2010.