New Zealand Prime Minister John Key (L) and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang speak during a ceremony at the Great Hall of People in Beijing, March 18, 2014. (Photo : REUTERS)
Chinese business events visitors to New Zealand can avail fast-tracked visa processing beginning March 2015.
The processing facilities will include a dedicated Immigration New Zealand personnel to handle all queries and streamlining of documents for visa applications through partner agents.
Upon submission of all documents, the processing will be done in three working days.
The arrangement is aimed for applicants seeking visas through designated business events travel agencies.
This follows the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in Shanghai by Immigration New Zealand, Tourism New Zealand and 12 business events travel agents.
"The aim of this MoU is to make conference and incentive trips more accessible to Chinese business travelers," said David Craig, TNZ's general manager Asia as quoted by CEI News.
The program will be launched in Eastern and Northern China, once the first group of 20 business events travel specialists gets ready.
Since 2013, New Zealand has been pushing to upgrade business events facilities in Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington, and Queenstown. The target is to accommodate more than 7,000 business events visitors by 2018. Tourism New Zealand hosted 2,631 business events travelers and added $19 million to the country's economy in the last 18 months.
A similar MoU with India was launched in Nov. 2014, whereby visitors traveling to New Zealand for recognized business events get to enjoy faster visa processing and reduced paperwork.
New Zealand has also been pushing to provide a more efficient visa processing online. The budget for Immigration New Zealand's "Vision 2015" project is now NZ$108.1 million, up from the original project budget of NZ$80 million.
Student visa applications became available online in Aug. 2014, and visitor and work visas and a Chinese-language visitor visa form will follow.
The upgrade will also allow third parties such as immigration advisers to lodge visa applications on behalf of their clients.
