Guillermo R. Velez, ambassador of Colombia in China, has disclosed that from January 1, 2007, Chinese citizens who hold a normal passport can go to Colombia for short-term visits or travel without applying for a visa.

Velez says Chinese citizens only need to provide their passport, return flight ticket and relative certificates to the Colombia Security Management Bureau before their entry into the country. They can stay in Colombia for 3 months or an accumulative 6 months in a year without a visa. Technical staff or equipment repair personnel can stay there for 1 month with a 15-day extension without a visa.

Colombia hopes this new measure will increase the communication between China and Colombia, and they are expecting reciprocal treatment from China.

Only 850 Chinese citizens applied for Colombia visas in 2006. Most of them were businessmen, which was an increase of 60% from the previous year.