Ten governmental departments vowed to promote cruise industry in China with the purpose to increase the cruise passenger numbers up to 14 million by 2035.
The notice, issued by the Chinese departments including Ministry of Transport and National Development and Reform Commission, said China would expand a policy that allows foreign tourists from cruise vessels to stay in the country for up to 15 days without visas, provided they left the country on the same cruise vessels.
The number of domestic cruisers has increased by over 40% annually since 2006 and reached a total of 2.43 million last year, driving the sector and related industries, spokesperson for Ministry of Transport, Wu Chungeng, said at a press conference.
He added that domestic cruise market was still in its infancy and there was a big gap in a lot of fields, including the design and building of cruise ships, development of cruise ports and cultivation of tourism markets, logistics and passenger services.
China aims to become one of the world's most dynamic cruise markets by 2035, with an entire cruise industry chain taking shape and huge progress achieved in investment structure, ships, lines, technology, services and emergency response. Among the measures, Port Shanghai was chosen to construct global supply center for cruise vessels.