FOCUS: Visa changes help keep Shanghai foreigner-friendly

Asian Economic News, Oct 28, 2003

SHANGHAI, Oct. 21 Kyodo

Shanghai expatriates support the city's recent series of visa rule relaxations, including prospects of five-year work visas, but many see the changes more as symbolic gestures than changes promising tangible benefits.

Many of the 300,000 foreigners who work formally in Shanghai say they think the city of 18 million is allowing longer visa terms and other foreigner-friendly changes to keep its century-old progressive edge over Beijing and other economic rivals.

The new visa policies began Sept. 25, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

''It's progressive, I would use that word,'' said Richard Helbich, a Canadian construction contractor who has come and gone from China on a series of visas since 1997.

''They want to be an international business center, that's what they want. What Beijing does, they don't want to do it,'' he said.

Other parts of China do not yet follow Shanghai's new visa policies, although Beijing authorities have talked of similar changes.

Since the 1920s, despite anti-foreigner pressure during the Mao Zedong era, Shanghai has kept up contact with the West and Japan.

Today, parts of the city feel like Los Angeles or Hong Kong, from the architecture to the coffeehouses, and foreigners can get by on English.

And the city is known now for pro-foreign business policies plus relatively little corruption.

The new visa rules allow managers and legal representatives of foreign companies with $30 million in registered capital to apply for five-year visas and for other foreign workers to extend work visas to the term of their residence permits.

Ex-patriots must make extra trips to the police station permit section if the documents often expire at different times.

''Residence permits being longer than visas -- it seems kind of odd,'' said Intel risk manager Bob Gujavarty, a U.S. citizen who spent half a day obtaining his residence permit in July.

''Shanghai is getting foreigner-friendlier to some extent,'' Gujavarty said. ''They make things easier for foreign companies, so they invest here.''

Foreigners themselves and company personnel departments, which usually handle visas and permits for foreign staff, will have less to worry about, said Sergio Garcia, director of Silkdragon Holdings of Hong Kong and Shanghai.

''Five years would be great. I don't have to remember to renew it. It's not a hassle, but for two weeks your passport is gone,'' said Garcia, from the U.S. ''I used to work in a company with eight expats. (The personnel secretary) had to put in her calendar one month ahead to get started renewing visas, because we all came up at different times.''

Among those affected by the new rules are Shanghai's estimated 100,000 Japanese residents, including 800 business owners who cluster in a district of bars, restaurants and massage parlors along Gubei Road.

''It's because Shanghai needs the talent, and Japan has that talent, and because Shanghai wants to invite investment,'' said Zeng Bo, a 33-year-old dual Chinese-Japanese citizen who owns a fish market on Gubei Road.

Expats said another visa change -- allowing airport-issued visas for urgent business -- came as an extra-pleasant surprise.

But few reacted to a further change letting expatriate children attend Chinese schools, which are less expensive than international schools. Foreigners often come alone or marry Chinese nationals, who can send their children to private schools anyway.

Resident alien permits could be the next move, some predict.

Not everyone is grateful. Some people go rigid when they hear about visa changes, fearing any shift could pose a threat. Others say the amount of hassle relief is minimal, so minimal that they do not even plan to take advantage of the changes.

''I qualify for (longer visas) myself, but I haven't bothered to do it,'' said Mark Thomas, managing director with the sport event management company S2M Group. ''Renewing every year is not very hard. The benefits you get are nothing special.''