On October 10 local time, in the completed third round of China-Germany inter-governmental consultations, the two sides decided to create conditions to facilitate people-to-people exchanges under the current legal framework and based on the principle of equality and reciprocity, and to list the measure of visa convenience in the Action Outline for China-Germany Cooperation as a specific outcome.

The two sides affirmed in the Outline that, with the goal of shortening the time of examining and issuing the short-term visa to 48 hours, a visa examining and issuing process for applicants' convenience will be implemented through simplifying the visa application process and accelerating the visa examining and issuing; convenience will be provided for business people applying the visa through the increase in the issuing of multiple-year and multiple-entry visas and the extension of the visa's duration of status; and all the efforts will be made to shorten the time of examining and issuing the long-term work visa to within two months. Germany is considering setting up more visa application centers in other Chinese cities in the current mode so as to expand the visa service towards Chinese citizens.

This is the measure of visa convenience for Chinese citizens taken by another European country after countries like the UK, Italy, and France. It will strongly promote China-Germany and China-Europe people-to-people exchanges, and will further promote China-Germany cooperation and exchanges in such fields as business and trade, investment and tourism.