The business community in Canada has urged Ottawa to start talks with Beijing on free-trade. Instead, it received a 10-year-multiple-entry visa scheme from China, to provide Canadian travelers easy passage across the Pacific for the purpose of business, family or leisure reasons. This change will bring about cost reduction as well as reduce excessive bureaucracy, making life relaxed for the companies in Canada.
China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi first promulgated about this arrangement. He said that according to the agreement, both the countries were liable to issue visas to each other’s nationals, with a maximum validity period of up to 10 years. However, this was implemented by Canada as early as 2012. It was only in November, 2014 that U.S. and China entered into a mutual visa agreement of the same duration.
Till date, Canadian business travelers were given a single-entry visa at the time of their first visit and subsequently, multiple-entry visas of longer duration in the forthcoming visits. Thus, these visas were a hindrance. According to the executive director of the Canada China Business Travel, Sarah Kutulakos, it is really a nice thing to do away with the visa.