China’s State Council has added two more mainland population centres – Xi’an and Qingdao – to the list of places where people can apply for Individual Visit Scheme (IVS) exit visas to travel to Macau and Hong Kong.
The information was confirmed on Friday by the country’s National Immigration Administration, and takes the number of IVS-eligible places to 51, from 49 previously. The change takes effect from March 6.
The news coincides with a recent request from the Hong Kong government to the mainland authorities for expansion of the IVS arrangements.
As per the announcement, only those with either a Xi’an or Qingdao residency permit will be allowed to apply.
The immigration administration spelled out specific terms for those from the two mainland cities seeking IVS travel to either Macau or Hong Kong. In the case of Macau, they can seek either to apply for a permit every three months, or for a once-per-year permit.
As long ago as March 2017, a group of Macau delegates to China’s National People’s Congress had urged the country’s central government to increase the number of cities covered by IVS. At that time the number of eligible places was already held at 49.
The system was first implemented in four cities in Guangdong, the mainland province next door to Macau and Hong Kong, and expanded several times between July 2003 and January 2007. A factor in a place’s eligibility to join the IVS initiative, has previously been mentioned as level of economic development.
According to the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), Xi’an, in Shaanxi province, had a population of 13.0 million and a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of CNY79,181 (about US$11,000) as of 2020.
HKTDC put the population of Qingdao, in Shandong province, at 10.0 million, and its per capita GDP at CNY123,828, as of the same year.
Of Macau’s just over 19.0 million mainland visitors in 2023, a total 55.8 percent, or 10.6 million of them, came via IVS visas, according to data from the city’s Statistics and Census Service.
The IVS update news also coincides with a seven-day “inspection tour” of Hong Kong, that began on Thursday, by a senior mainland official. Xia Baolong is director of the Hong Kong and Macao Work Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council.
