Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/09/16
By: Huang Huei-min and Ko Lin

Taipei, Sept. 16 (CNA) China's ban on individual Chinese travelers visiting three of Taiwan's offshore counties will be lifted effective Sept. 20, the Kinmen County government announced Monday.

Since Aug. 1, Beijing has banned individual tourists from 47 Chinese cities from traveling to Taiwan, citing the current state of relations between the two sides.

Following more than a month of negotiations, Kinmen, along with Penghu and Lienchiang (Matsu), convinced Beijing to lift the ban for their counties beginning this week, the county government said in a statement. Applications for individual travelers from 20 cities in China's four major provinces — Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Guangdong — will be accepted again beginning Friday, it said.

Kinmen County Magistrate Yang Cheng-wu (楊鎮浯) said the ban has had a huge impact on the county's tourism and related sectors, noting that the announcement was a major boost in morale.
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