APEC Business Travel "Go as You Say"! Cardholders can be exempted from visa 16 countries!

Yesterday, the relevant person in charge of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Xiamen Municipal People's Government visited the municipal government website to interpret the relevant content of the "Implementation Rules for Xiamen Enterprise Personnel to Apply for APEC Business Travel Card.

What is the APEC Business Travel Card?

The APEC Business Travel Card (hereinafter referred to as the "Travel Card") is a mutually beneficial multilateral visa arrangement made by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation to promote trade and investment facilitation in the region, which aims to facilitate the movement of business personnel from the organization's economies.

Currently, 21 APEC economies have joined the program. China (Mainland) cardholders can travel to and from up to 16 economies (Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Russia). Applying for this card is equivalent to collecting the visas of the above 16 economies at one time, and there is no need to apply for a visa when going to the above economies for business activities during the validity period.

The application procedure is simple and can be handled online.

State-owned enterprises in our city and non-public enterprises registered in our city, as long as they have business contacts with APEC economies or plan to go to APEC economies to develop business, they can apply for the card for their personnel.

The travel card shall be applied by the applicant enterprise for the personnel of the enterprise and shall bear the corresponding responsibility. Applicants for non-state-owned enterprises shall be reported to the Municipal Foreign Affairs Office by their affiliated enterprises; applicants for state-owned enterprises shall go through the approval procedures for going abroad on business before applying. Please log on to the official website of the municipal foreign affairs office (http://fao.xm.gov.cn/), enter the "municipal foreign affairs office entry and exit management system" from the "service" column, click on the "APEC business travel card", and after registration, you can apply for the enterprise personnel online. Due to the different approval time of each economy, under normal circumstances, the whole process of card processing takes 3 to 6 months.

In order to provide maximum convenience, only 2 forms and 1 photo are required, namely, the APEC Business Travel Card Application Enterprise Profile Form, the APEC Business Travel Card Applicant Profile Form and the color copy of the applicant's passport personal data page. The above forms can be generated and uploaded online in the "Entry and Exit Administration System of the Municipal Foreign Affairs Office.

Travel card is equivalent to "visa" as important as passport

The travel card is equivalent to a "visa", and the cardholder needs to hold a valid travel card and passport at the same time in order to enter and leave the relevant economy. It should be noted that the cardholder can only enter and leave the approved economy, which is marked on the back of the travel card in English initials. The main ports of the economies participating in the travel card scheme have dedicated travel card channels.

The Municipal Foreign Affairs Office reminded that the travel card, as a document as important as the passport, should be properly kept by the cardholder. If it is accidentally lost, it should be reported to the local public security organ in time, and keep the evidence of the report. After that, the applicant shall apply to Xiamen Foreign Affairs Office for cancellation and card replacement.