"Business has never been so bad," said Ma Yi, manager of the Arabian Restaurant. "Well, what can we do? The Olympics has to open."

 

The Beijing Olympics in August may be China's biggest international event in decades, but the Games have hardly been a windfall for many businesses in Yiwu, about 200 miles south of Shanghai, and in other cities that rely heavily on foreign customers. The main issue: China's recently tightened visa restrictions, imposed ostensibly for public security reasons ahead of the Olympic Games.

 

The government is now requiring business-visa applicants to submit papers bearing official stamps from local governments and the hotels where they will be staying. What's more, foreigners can no longer use Hong Kong as an easy gateway to enter mainland China, as many have done for years.

 

"You know, there are many hotel reservation websites that cannot provide such stamps," said Jiang Fangzheng, assistant manager at Yiwu Hotel....

 

http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-trw-chinavisa23-2008jun23

The national pride is expensive to pay up . Hope your China business can live through this hard time.

Quoting from [Jacco]:

"Business has never been so bad," said Ma Yi, manager of the Arabian Restaurant. "Well, what can we do? The Olympics has to open."

 

The Beijing Olympics in August may be China's biggest international event in decades, but the Games have hardly been a windfall for many businesses in Yiwu, about 200 miles south of Shanghai, and in other cities that rely heavily on foreign customers. The main issue: China's recently tightened visa restrictions, imposed ostensibly for public security reasons ahead of the Olympic Games.

 

The government is now requiring business-visa applicants to submit papers bearing official stamps from local governments and the hotels where they will be staying. What's more, foreigners can no longer use Hong Kong as an easy gateway to enter mainland China, as many have done for years.

 

"You know, there are many hotel reservation websites that cannot provide such stamps," said Jiang Fangzheng, assistant manager at Yiwu Hotel....

 

http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-trw-chinavisa23-2008jun23

 

The national pride is expensive to pay up . Hope your China business can live through this hard time.

everything goes  well