State Council, Administration of Travel Agencies Regulations (Revised)

Promulgated: December 11 2001
Effective: January 1 2002
Applicability: Foreign-funded travel agencies referred to in the Regulations are Sino-foreign equity and cooperative joint travel agencies (Article 27).
References may be made to the Regulations for establishment of travel agencies in the Mainland by investors from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan (Article 46).

Main contents: The revised Regulations have an additional part, Part Four, on foreign-funded travel agencies. The minimum registered capital of Sino-foreign equity or cooperative joint travel agencies should be Rmb4 million. The adjustment of the minimum registered capital and the proportion of capital contribution of each party should be determined by the State Council administrative department in charge of tourism together with the foreign trade and economic cooperation department of the State Council (Article 28). The qualifications of the Chinese party and the foreign party of a joint travel agency are also set out in the new part (Articles 29 and 30). The foreign party should have a volume of business in tourism of at least US$40 million. The application for setting up a foreign-funded travel agency should be filed by the Chinese party (Article 31). Foreign-funded travel agencies may engage in inbound and domestic tourism businesses but cannot engage in outbound tourism business for Chinese citizens or tourism business for people in other areas of China travelling to Hong Kong, Macao or Taiwan (Articles 32 and 33). Foreign-funded travel agencies are not allowed to set up branches (Article 32).
Repealed legislation: Experimental Sino-foreign Equity Joint Venture Travel Agencies Tentative Procedures, Dec 2 1998, CLP 1999 No.2 p10