China opens first visa center in Lahore

On Monday, China opened up the first visa application service center in Lahore to facilitate applicants wishing to visit the country.

Yao Jing, the Chinese Ambassador to Islamabad, inaugurated the center. Others who attended the ceremony included the Chinese Lahore Consul General Long Dingbin, Deputy Consul General Peng Zhengwu and officials from the Punjab government.

Speaking to Geo.tv, Zhengwu called the visa center a landmark step. “Earlier residents of Lahore had to travel to Islamabad to apply for a visa to China,” he said, “This new place will provide enormous relief to businessmen and visitors. Lahore is an important city and the new hub of economic activity in Punjab.”

The visa center in Lahore will handle ordinary visa applications to China, to the special administrative region of Hong Kong and Macao. However, the final approval will still be granted by the Chinese embassy in Islamabad. The Lahore office will only collect the needful documents and forward the requests.

The Chinese “embassy will not operate the visa center in Lahore directly. It has outsourced it to a private company,” Zhengwu added.

Approximately 4,000 applications are processed by China’s embassy in Islamabad per month.