With the APEC conference held in Beijing for the moment, the ABTC policy briefing was held by Yichang Foreign Affairs and Overseas Chinese Affairs Office on the afternoon of November 10th to promote ABTC（APEC Business Travel Card）to several enterprises and news media, aiming to propel enterprises in Yichang “go abroad”, expand their overseas market and strengthen their international competitiveness. “You can truly travel to Asia-Pacific countries with just one card at any time you like!” Liu Zhenhua said on the briefing, the director of Yichang Foreign Affairs and Overseas Chinese Affairs Office. ABTC is a special travel card for the APEC member countries to boost economy, trade and investment cooperation and business people communications in Asia Pacific, together with the cardholders have free trade relations with 16 economic entities, including Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guninea, Chile, Peru, Mexico and Russia. Each involved economic entity will set up exclusive channels for the cardholders’ fast track at the main entry and exit ports.

　　At present, the ABTC applications of other economic entities will not be accepted in both America and Canada, nor will ABTC be delivered to American citizens or Canadian citizens, while the cardholders from other economic entities will be offered the service, such as visa application and entry and exit customs clearance.

　　Li Zhenhua said, “ABTC is valid in three years, which means the card holders can enter the above mentioned countries without visa in three years. With ABTC and consistent valid passport, the cardholders have access to relevant economic entities with as long as 2 &3 -month duration of stay (standards differ among economic entities) to ease the enterprises visas difficulty and further business contacts in 3 years.” He also said that the business people of SOE and private enterprises, together with the Chinese delegates (mainlanders) of Sino-foreign joint ventures, exclusively foreign-owned enterprises, and Taiwan-funded enterprises, HK-funded enterprises and Macao-funded enterprises with a certain scale, sound integrity, high export-oriented interdependency and business need in APEC countries can apply to the municipal Foreign Affairs and Overseas Chinese Affairs Office for the ABTC.

　　It is reported that since getting the authorization of dealing with ABTC application from Overseas Office of Hubei Province in 2010, Overseas office of Yichang has successfully issued ABTC to high-rank management people and marketing people of Angle Group Co. Ltd., Hubei Tianxia Sturgeon Co. Ltd., Hubei Lidi Machine Tool Co. Ltd., Hubei Yihua Co. Ltd., Yichang Sanxia Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., etc., totally 38 people accumulating in 14 timesLiu Zhenhua also said that the municipal Foreign Affairs and Overseas Chinese Affairs Office will provide the enterprises’ applications for ABTC with high-quality and high-efficient service and continuously open wider to the outside world on the principle of serving enterprises heart and soul.

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　　What are needed for applying ABTC?

　　1． Request for applying ABTC (include enterprises sizes, benefits, balance sheets, profit and tax, export and import data, business cooperation records with relevant economies);

　　2. Business license of enterprise’s legal person (the copy should be noted “the copy is consistent with the original” and stamped with the enterprise cachet);

　　3. Enterprise\'s code certificate;

　　4. Record Filing and Registration of Foreign Trade Operators;

　　5, Certifications for export and import value ( the original ones are provided by custom);

　　6, Certifications for tax payment ( the original are provided by tax or statistical department);

　　7, The No Criminal Record Certificate (original) issued by the local public security department of the applicant;

　　8, The original document of applicants’ social security payment by the enterprises;

　　9, The applicants’ resumes;

　　10, Original and one copy of applicant\'s common service passports (state-owned enterprise’s staff) or common national passports (staff in other enterprises) with four years validity, and one copy of applicant’s ID;

　　11 One filled ABTC Application Form;

　　12. One recent color photo, with white background, 2 inch, and its electrical version (550×733 Pixel) (Compiled by reporter: Sun Xiaoling