Cindy Zhang

    zhqcindy@163.com

    A JOINT visa application center for France, Germany and the Netherlands officially opened its doors at the News Building in Futian District on May 3, after a one-month trial operation.

    The visa center caters to Chinese nationals and can only be used by other nationalities with evidence of an emergency. The joint visa application center will provide visa services for individual tourists, business visitors and travel groups going to Europe for Chinese visitors.

    Each year, an increasing number of Chinese residents travel to Europe.

    “Last year, 3.5 million Chinese visited Europe, with nearly half of them visiting France,” Bertrand Furno, the counsel general from the French Consulate General in Guangzhou, said at an official opening ceremony of the visa application center. The new visa center in Shenzhen started to accept Chinese citizens’ applications to the three countries April 7 during a trial operation.

    The center received 30 applications for French visas each day on average while nearly 40 to 50 applications for German visas were received, according to Chen Yuxin, the operation manager from the visa center.

    Chen said that the new visa center is operated by TLScontact, a company specializes in providing customer relationship management, and their local partner China International Intellectual Co. (CIIC) with the approval of the three countries.

    TLScontact and CIIC handle over 170,000 visa applications per year for tourists, companies, individual travelers and traders traveling to France, Germany and the Netherlands. With simplified visa application procedures, applicants in Shenzhen do not need to travel to Guangzhou to be fingerprinted. The new visa center will be used to record biometric data and submit visa applications. All applications will be transferred to the consulates general in Guangzhou for processing.