China will gradually allow foreign travel agencies to open fully foreign-funded offices after Beijing joins the World Trade Organisation, according to an official with the China National Tourism Administration.
Foreign travel agencies will be allowed to set up 100 per cent-owned travel agencies in China by the end of 2005, China National Tourism Administration vice-director Sun Gang told Xinhua.
Foreign partners will be allowed to take a majority stake in Sino-foreign joint venture travel agencies before the end of 2003, Xinhua added.
At present, the maximum stake foreign travel agencies are allowed to take in Sino-foreign joint venture agencies is 49 per cent.
China did not allow foreign travel agencies to set up Sino-foreign joint ventures on the mainland until the end of 1998, when the tourism administration and Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation (Moftec) jointly issued temporary regulations governing such ventures.
To date, there are only eight such Sino-foreign joint venture travel agencies in China. Beijing has three, Guangdong two and there is one each in Yunnan, Tianjin and Gansu.
