Explore Business Standard
Don’t miss the latest developments in business and finance.
India and Fiji on Thursday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on visa exemption for holders of diplomatic and official passports.External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Fiji's Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka witnessed the MoU exchange.Jaishankar on the occasion said: "I just signed and exchanged the visa waiver agreement. It will be helpful in encouraging greater travel between our two countries."Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka called the MoU exchange a landmark achievement and said positive discussions were held today to further advance mutual cooperation in key areas of development notably in health and education."On behalf of the government of Fiji, I thank the government of India for realising this important cooperation. I'm confident that we will witness many more such initiatives unfolding through the deepening of our cooperation," Rabuka said.As a result of the visa exemption, diplomatic and official passport holders in India and Fiji will now be able to enter, ...
The Chinese government says it will start issuing new passports as it dismantles anti-virus travel barriers, setting up a potential flood of millions of tourists out of China for next month's Lunar New Year holiday. That raises the possibility of an influx of free-spending Chinese visitors to revenue-starved destinations in Asia and Europe in what usually is the country's busiest travel season. But it also presents a danger, as tourists might spread COVID-19 as infections surge in China. China stopped issuing passports at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 as part of the world's strictest anti-virus controls and tried to block students, businesspeople and other travellers from going abroad. Tourist travel into China was shut down. Businesspeople and others who were allowed in were quarantined for up to one week. Tuesday's announcement adds to abrupt changes that roll back a "zero-COVID" strategy that confined millions of families to their homes. It kept infection rates