China is set to resume issuing ordinary visas and passports, setting up a potential flood of millions of Chinese going abroad for next month’s Lunar New Year holiday.

Tuesday's announcement adds to abrupt changes that are rolling back some of the world’s strictest anti-virus controls as President Xi Jinping's government tries to reverse an economic slump.

The National Immigration Administration of China said it will start taking applications on January 8 for passports for tourists to go abroad. The agency will take applications for ordinary visas and residence permits.

It said the government will “gradually resume” allowing in foreign visitors and gave no indication when full-scale tourist travel from abroad might be allowed.

China will also resume issuing approval for tourists and businesspeople to visit Hong Kong, a Chinese territory with its own border controls.

The country stopped issuing visas to foreigners and passports to its own people at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020.

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Public health crisis

On Monday, the government said it would scrap quarantine requirements for travellers arriving from abroad, also effective January 8.

Foreign companies welcomed the change as an important step to revive slumping business activity. Business groups have warned global companies were shifting investment away from China because foreign executives were blocked from visiting.

Also on Monday, the government downgraded Covid-19 from a Class A infectious disease to a Class B disease and removed it from the list of illnesses that require quarantine.

It said authorities would stop tracking down close contacts and designating areas as being at high or low risk of infection.

Health experts and economists expected the ruling Communist Party to keep restrictions on travel into China until at least mid-2023 while it carries out a campaign to vaccinate millions of elderly people.

Experts say that is necessary to prevent a public health crisis.

The latest decision could send an influx of free-spending Chinese tourists to revenue-starved destinations in Asia and Europe for Lunar New Year, which begins January 22.

But it also presents a danger they might spread Covid-19 as infections surge in China.

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