Peru may soon welcome 50,000 Chinese visitors every year, figures substantially higher than the 19,243 received in 2015, Peru's Foreign Trade and Tourism Minister Eduardo Ferreyros projected.
"Last year, close to 19,000 Chinese visitors entered Peru. However, our current objective is to promote the inflow of China tourists. We expect to welcome 50,000 Chinese nationals in two years," he pointed out.
Said 19,000 visitors had to get a visa to visit the Inca nation, a requirement now removed by the government, Ferreyros stressed.
"One of the first measures taken by this administration was the visa waiver for Chinese citizens holding a Schengen, US or Canada visa. This will ease inflow of Chinese tourists," he noted.
Visitors from the Asian Giant are not only vacationing tourists, but also businessmen, the Minister added.
Foreign trade
The government official also referred to the different meetings held during President Kuczynski's visit.
"While in Beijing, we have held several meetings with the Chinese Foreign Trade Ministry and sanitary authorities to gain access for Peruvian blueberries and shrimps. Likewise, we expect protocol signing to take place during Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit in November," he told Peruvian Canal N news station.
Topics addressed included the Peru-China FTA bilateral agenda. In this sense, the second meeting of the Peru-China Free Trade Agreement Commission has been scheduled for December (Beijing).
Ferreyros also referred to talks on reinforcing the customs cooperation agreement binding both nations.
"We have discussed the need to strengthen the customs cooperation agreement in place for information exchange between Chinese and Peruvian customs agencies," he said.
On the other hand, he commented on the meeting held with China Eastern airline representatives in Shanghai to study passenger and cargo traffic.
"It seems like we are about to begin the first Lima-China cargo shipping of Peruvian products," he concluded.
(END) MVM/DHT/MVB