Chinese companies lose more than USD 50M due to travel ban in India:  Chinese Chamber

NEW DELHI: Chinese enterprises have urged the Indian government to relax visa restrictions, and open special channel to allow senior executives/engineers to enter India as Chinese companies are suffering heavy losses due to travel restrictions.

Clamped on February 5, the restrictions against Chinese nationals barring them from entering India has evoked sharp reaction from the Chinese corporate world.

“The losses to Chinese enterprises due to current visa policy is more than USD 50 million as per data of half month back, and we believe the losses kept increasing as most of the Chinese enterprises can’t operate normally,” said Wang Yonglin (Alen), Chairman, Chamber of Chinese Enterprises in India (CCEI) in New Delhi on Friday.

While acknowledging the concerns of the Indian government in controlling the spread of deadly coronavirus, Wang said these measures had already caused huge losses to Chinese enterprises as well as the Indian industry and people. Most of the high-level Chinese management people, technical experts, engineers, and employees could not return to India right now.

“Out of a total of 20,000 Chinese nationals living in India at a given point of time, there are 2000 of them left here. Ninety percent of those who had left for celebrating Chinese New Year from India in January are stuck in China ever since India imposed visa restriction on Feb 5,” said the CCEI chief.

Wang urged the Indian government to consider conditional relaxation for the select Chinese senior managers, technical experts, and public affairs experts working on urgent projects by providing them a special channel to allow them to enter India.

“This relaxation could be for a certain period with original valid visas and health certificates of Chinese hospitals and a 14-day self-quarantine to ensure safety in India,” said Wang.

For combating against the COVID-19 epidemic, the Indian government took some effective measures to prevent spreading out of the virus in India. It announced that all existing visas including employment visas, business visas, and e-visas were no longer valid for Chinese nationals since 5th February.

The CCEI also sought to resume the valid status of Indian employment visas the Chinese nationals hold, who are either in India or China, and their visas have either not expired or are nearing expiry, after the lifting of the ban on entry into India, and to avoid reapplying for new employment visas.

It also sought resumption of E-visas services for the Chinese nationals as soon as possible.

“It is very difficult for Chinese employees to obtain Indian employment visas. If they reapply, it will take at least 3 months, even as long as 5-6 months. For the medium and long term, the current visa policy of Indian government will have a serious impact on the normal operation and business of Chinese enterprises in India, affecting the medium and long term investment of Chinese enterprises in India, and cause a great blow to the confidence of Chinese enterprises in investing in India,” cautioned Wing.

IMPACT ON INDIA:

The CCEI also said that at the same time, relevant measures would also have an impact on India’s economic development and employment situation.

“Many factories can’t open as planned, and some of the projects under construction got delayed, and the production capacity of factories is much lower than designed, and a lot of local staff can’t attend as their management can’t come back. And the legal and regulatory compliance jobs are also severely affected by the absence of management,” said the CCII chief.

Therefore the current visa policy has lots of space to optimize, which will further impact Chinese enterprises’ business and India’s economy for several months even after the epidemic finishes and the ban of entry is lifted.

“After all, the virus is a borderless thread for all mankind, so combating against the COVID-19 epidemic is not only the duty for China but for all countries. We should be more confident to win the battle against the epidemic with the supports of India and the international community. I hope we can join hands to overcome the difficulties and lead the economic and trade cooperation between China and India back on track at the earliest,” added Wang.