First Sino-Japan Tourism Venture InauguratedA travel agency jointly funded by the Japan Travel Bureau Inc. (JTB) and the CITIC Tourism Corporation has been established, becoming the first Sino-Japan tourism venture.The New Century International Travel Agency Corp. Ltd. is also the first foreign-funded travel agency since the country issued the Interim Procedures for Overseas-Invested Travel Agencies in December 1998. Early in May 1998, a Sino-Swiss travel agency was set up in the Dianchi Lake Holiday Resort in Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province in southwest China, as the first foreign-funded travel agency in China. The New Century travel agency will mainly look after Japanese tourists, sight-seers and visitors to China, as well as small numbers of tourists from other countries and regions. The CITIC tourism corporation, set up in 1987, has been one of the top 100 travel agencies for many years. The JTB Inc. is one of the largest travel agencies in the world with annual sales volume exceeding ten billion US dollars. It is also the foreign travel agency that brings the largest number of tourists to China. The Interim Procedures for Overseas-Invested Travel Agencies aims to further expand the opening of China's tourist industry overseas, said Wei Xiao'an, director of the Policy and Law Department of the China National Tourism Administration. Wei declared that the new policy will be help give China's tourist industry an international edge, and improve the quality of China's own travel agencies. |
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