(Yicai) Jan. 16 -- China will waive visa requirements for ordinary Swiss citizens, making Switzerland the seventh country that China is implementing a unilateral visa-free policy with since Dec. 1 last year as the country continues to pursue high-quality development and high-level opening up.

And Switzerland will provide improved visa facilitation for Chinese citizens and Chinese companies investing in Switzerland, CCTV News reported yesterday. The date when the new policy will take effect has not yet been announced.

A seven-year feasibility study on the upgrading of the China-Switzerland Free Trade Agreement, which came into force in July 2014, has recently been completed and negotiations on the implementation of the upgrades will start as soon as possible, the report said.

China and Switzerland will hold a new round of foreign minister dialogues, financial working group meetings, energy working group meetings and education policy dialogues as well as United Nations Security Council consultations this year.

Some 147,000 people from the six visa-free countries, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia, entered China without a visa as of Jan. 9, showing an uptick in visitors, according to data from the National Immigration Administration. There were over 4,300 visa-free entries on Jan. 8, more than double that on Dec. 1, and 70 percent of them were tourists.

Editor: Kim Taylor