Chinese rush to renew passports as COVID border curbs lifted - Reuters.com

BEIJING, Jan 9 (Reuters) - People joined agelong queues extracurricular migration offices successful Beijing connected Monday, anxious to renew their passports aft China dropped COVID borderline controls that had mostly prevented its 1.4 cardinal residents from travelling for 3 years.

Sunday's reopening is 1 of the past steps successful China's dismantling of its "zero-COVID" regime, which began past period aft historical protests against curbs that kept the microorganism astatine bay but caused wide vexation among its people.

Waiting to renew his passport successful a enactment of much than 100 radical successful China's capital, 67-year-old retiree Yang Jianguo told Reuters helium was readying to question to the United States to spot his girl for the archetypal clip successful 3 years.

"She got joined past twelvemonth but had to postpone the wedding ceremonial due to the fact that we couldn't spell implicit to be it. We're precise gladsome we tin present go," Yang said, lasting alongside his wife.

China's currency and banal markets strengthened connected Monday, arsenic investors stake the reopening could assistance reinvigorate a $17 trillion system suffering its lowest maturation successful astir fractional a century.

Beijing's determination to driblet quarantine requirements for visitors is expected to boost outbound travel, arsenic residents volition not look those restrictions erstwhile they return.

But flights are scarce and respective nations are demanding antagonistic tests from visitors from China, seeking to incorporate an outbreak that is overwhelming galore of China's hospitals and crematoriums. China, too, requires pre-departure antagonistic COVID tests from travellers.

China's apical wellness officials and authorities media person repeatedly said COVID infections are peaking crossed the state and they are playing down the menace present posed by the disease.

"Life is moving guardant again!," the authoritative paper of the Communist Party, the People's Daily, wrote successful an editorial praising the government's microorganism policies precocious connected Sunday which it said had moved from "preventing infection" to "preventing terrible disease".

"Today, the microorganism is weak, we are stronger."

Officially, China has reported conscionable 5,272 COVID-related deaths arsenic of Jan. 8, 1 of the lowest rates of decease from the corruption successful the world.

But the World Health Organization has said China is under-reporting the standard of the outbreak and planetary microorganism experts estimation much than 1 cardinal radical successful the state could dice from the illness this year.

Shrugging disconnected those gloomy forecasts, Asian shares climbed to a five-month precocious connected Monday portion China's yuan firmed to its strongest level against the dollar since mid-August.

China's blue-chip scale (.CSI300) gained 0.7%, portion the Shanghai Composite Index (.SSEC) roseate 0.5% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index (.HSI) climbed 1.6%.

"The ending of the zero-COVID argumentation is ... going to person a large affirmative interaction connected home spending," Ralph Hamers, radical main enforcement serviceman astatine UBS, told the Swiss bank's yearly Greater China league connected Monday.

"We judge determination is simply a batch of accidental for those committed to investing successful China."

'HUGE RELIEF'

"It's a immense alleviation conscionable to beryllium capable to spell backmost to mean ... conscionable travel backmost to China, get disconnected the plane, get myself a taxi and conscionable spell home," Michael Harrold, 61, a transcript exertion successful Beijing told Reuters astatine Beijing Capital International Airport connected Sunday aft helium arrived connected a formation from Warsaw.

Harrold said helium had been anticipating having to quarantine and bash respective rounds of investigating connected his instrumentality erstwhile helium near for Europe for a Christmas interruption successful aboriginal December.

State broadcaster CCTV reported connected Sunday that nonstop flights from South Korea to China were adjacent to sold out. The study rapidly changeable to the most-read point connected Chinese societal media tract Weibo.

In the adjacent term, a spike successful request from travellers volition beryllium hampered by the constricted fig of flights to and from China, which are presently astatine a tiny fraction of pre-COVID levels.

Flight Master information showed that connected Sunday, China had a full of 245 planetary inbound and outbound flights, compared with 2,546 flights connected the aforesaid time successful 2019 - a autumn of 91%.

Korean Air said earlier this period that it was halting a program to summation flights to China owed to Seoul's cautious stance towards Chinese travellers. South Korea similar galore different countries present requires travellers from China, Macau and Hong Kong to supply antagonistic COVID trial results earlier departure.

Taiwan, which started investigating arrivals from China connected Jan. 1, said connected Monday that astir 20% of those tested truthful acold were affirmative for COVID.

China's home tourism gross successful 2023 is expected to retrieve to 70-75% of pre-COVID levels, but the fig of inbound and outbound trips is forecast to retrieve to lone 30-40% of pre-COVID levels this year, China News reported connected Sunday.

Reporting by Yew Lun Tian, Liz Lee, Josh Arslan, Eduardo Baptista and Sophie Yu successful Beijing; Ben Blanchard successful Taipei; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan

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