[TIANJIN] Singapore and China are looking to establish a mutual 30-day visa exemption arrangement, as the two nations seek to push travel back to and beyond pre-Covid levels.

According to Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, both countries will work out the implementation details and implement it in early 2024.

People flows between the two countries have been improving, and flight connectivity is approaching pre-Covid levels, said Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on Thursday (Dec 7) during the 19th Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC) in Tianjin, China.

“We hope to get to pre-Covid levels and even go beyond pre-Covid levels in terms of our direct flight connectivity,” said Wong, adding that the new visa-free arrangements seek to support this goal.

This follows the resumption of China’s 15-day visa-free facility for Singaporean travellers on Jul 26 this year, more than three years after it was suspended early in the pandemic.

A total of 3.63 million Chinese tourists visited Singapore in 2019. For the first five months of this year, arrivals rose to just 20 per cent of pre-Covid-19 levels, and were overtaken by visitors from Indonesia, India and Australia.

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In July, total international arrivals climbed to 1.42 million, driven by a stronger return of Chinese travellers, which more than doubled from June to 231,326.

In February, China resumed group tours to Singapore and other countries. However, overall growth in outbound tourism from China has remained lukewarm, compared with domestic tourism, as international flights have been slow to resume.

Factors for the slower-than-hoped-for rebound include higher airfares and more cautious spending amid China’s slowing growth.

Establishing this new travel arrangement will also “fortify the bedrock of (Singapore and China’s) financial relationships”, DPM Wong said.

This is the first time Wong and his Chinese counterpart, Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang, are co-chairing the JCBC – the apex bilateral platform for Singapore and China.

It is also the first time that the meeting is taking place since both countries officially upgraded their relations in April to an “all-round, high-quality, future-oriented partnership”, after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong met Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Chinese capital.

In his opening remarks, Wong stressed the importance of strengthening cooperation between the two countries amid geopolitical uncertainty and global economic headwinds.

“I’m very happy that in this JCBC, we will be discussing ways to renew and extend our economic links, to reimagine our industries so that they are ready for the future, and to reinforce the close ties across all levels,” he added.

Even as Singapore and China consolidate their cooperation in “traditional” areas such as trade and investments, they are also broadening and deepening their partnerships in new and emerging areas, such as the green and digital economies, said Wong.

As China leverages digital development strategies to develop its economy, “Singapore will also continue to participate in the growth of these features”, he added.

Speaking in Mandarin, Vice-Premier Ding said he hopes Singapore and China can further establish a new landscape for both countries to cooperate in a mutually beneficial manner in the “new era” of bilateral relations.

He noted that since the beginning of this year, both countries have seen fruitful outcomes and multiple highlights in their cooperation.

Economic and trade cooperation has scaled to new heights, “high quality” Belt and Road cooperation is proceeding steadily, and “key cooperation programmes” have been implemented in a profound way, he said.

The JCBC is thus for both countries to identify the trajectory for cooperation in the next phase of relations, and to jointly implement the consensus reached between the two leaders, said Ding.

“I believe, with our joint efforts, these meetings will achieve full success,” he said.

Wong is currently on a four-day official visit to China, and is now in Tianjin for the 19th edition of the JCBC. He was previously in the capital Beijing, where he met with Chinese premier Li Qiang and vice-premier He Lifeng.