Zahid: Malaysia and China to fortify visa waiver scheme

Fast and easy: Malaysian visa application centre assistant manager Kho Cheah Peng (second from left) showing Dr Ahmad Zahid the eVisa system. Looking on are Immigration Department director-general Datuk Sakib Kusmi (left) and Malaysian ambassador to China Datuk Zainuddin Yahya.

BEIJING: Malaysia will work with the Chinese authorities to ensure security is not jeopardised with the implementation of visa waiver for Chinese tourists to Malaysia, says Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

The Deputy Prime Minister said the Chinese side would be providing Malaysia with suspects’ lists and biometric data.

“While we want Chinese tourists to come, both countries have to look at the issues of transnational crime and terrorism so that we will not be caught in a snare as a result of the relaxed visa requirements,” he said.

Dr Ahmad Zahid, who is also the Home Minister, was speaking to reporters after visiting the Malaysian visa processing centre here yesterday.

Besides updating the Chinese side officially on the latest visa arrangements, he will also have discussions with his counterpart, Chinese Public Security Minister Guo Shengkun, and the Communist Party’s Central Political and Legal Affairs secretary Meng Jiangzhu, on handling transnational crime and terrorism.

“We do not want Malaysia to become a transit point for Chinese suspects to go to a third country,” he added.

Malaysia has rolled out several measures to facilitate the visa application in order to attract more Chinese tourists to Malaysia, including waiving visa fee last year and introducing electronic visa early this year.

Last week, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced that tourists from China would be exempted from tourists’ visas from March 1 to Dec 31.

It is applicable to tourists travelling in a group of two or more for a period of fewer than 15 days. They also have to book their tours via authorised travel agencies.

Tourists who do not fulfil the exemption criteria have to apply for visas as usual.

They can utilise the eVisa system (www.windowmalaysia.my) that has been put in place since Jan 2.

Currently, eVisa applicants still have to submit their passports to the four visa-processing centres in China to have the visas attached onto their passports, as per the requirements of the Chinese authorities.

Dr Ahmad Zahid said the applicants would be able to print the visa themselves after submitting the application online in future.

The visa fee of 80 yuan (RM51) is waived for eVisa until Dec 31, but the processing fee of US$25 (RM105) still applies. The full implementation of eVisa will start on March 1.

To tap into China’s lucrative outbound market, Dr Ahmad Zahid added that the Home Ministry, Immigration Department and enforcement authorities had to find ways to make it easier for tourists to visit Malaysia.

He had earlier said Malaysia was targeting eight million Chinese tourists over the next five years, which would bring an annual revenue of RM22.1bil to the tourism industry.