Acting on China’s request Sri Lanka also launched a special page in Mandarin-language on its official immigration website, permitting Chinese tourists to apply for a visa using their mother tongue Mandarin
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New Delhi: In attempts to avail quick and easy visas for Chinese citizens coming to Sri Lanka, the Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa-led government has waved the language condition from its immigration rules. As per a new agreement between Colombo and Beijing, Chinese citizens now planning to visit Sri Lanka are not required to know English-language, let alone Sinhalese.
The Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa-led government has exempted Chinese nationals from knowing English-language when applying for a tourist visa for Sri Lanka as per an agreement signed between the two countries.
Last week, the two nations signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on striking off the linguistic requirement. According to a government release, an MoU was signed between the Sri Lankan Immigration Department and China travel specialist Travelzen International Travel Service (Shanghai). The MoU permits Chinese tourists to apply for a visa to visit Sri Lanka using their mother tongue Mandarin.
Sources claimed that the Chinese Embassy in Colombo in 2019, had approached the Sri Lankan government on the linguistic issues faced by their nationals while applying for visas. Chinese nationals reported having been experiencing language barriers while applying for Sri Lankan visas via the Electronic Travel Authorisation System implemented in the island nation as it functions only in the English-language.
Last week, acting on China’s request not only did Sri Lanka signed an MoU but also launched a special page in Mandarin-language on its official immigration website.
The efforts taken by Colombo were immediately commended by the Chinese Embassy which said that ‘both sides are confident that this facilitation service would attract more Chinese tourists to Sri Lanka in future’.
A Chinese Embassy spokesperson was quoted as saying ‘during the last couple of years, many popular tourist destinations including Thailand, New Zealand, Australia have already introduced similar friendly policies. New Zealand Immigration even chose Chinese as one of the two languages on its official website’.
