The government will further ease visa requirements for high-income Chinese tourists by extending the validity of their multiple-entry visas to five years from the current three, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said Tuesday.
Such tourists will also have unrestricted travel throughout Japan with visas to be issued after the new rules take effect Jan. 19, Kishida told a news conference.
The conventional visa for wealthy Chinese and their families requires that they visit either Okinawa or one of the three disaster-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima when visiting Japan for the first time. This is to promote reconstruction from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.