Commercial flights between China and Maldives to resume

Chinese Ambassador to Maldives Wang Lixin giving an interview to PSM. | Photo: Chinese Embassy

Malé, Maldives – Chinese Ambassador to Maldives, Wang Lixin has revealed that direct flights from China to Maldives is set to resume by next month.

Speaking on a local media program, Ambassador Wang Lixin told that with the improving Covid-19 situation in China that direct flights for tourists and other visitors can be resumed by next month.

“With the facilitation of visa exemption agreement and as the Covid-19 situation getting better, I believe that in the near future the number of tourists and visitors moving between our two countries will increase greatly. We are also working on resuming direct flights between the two countries. Hopefully it can start next month, which will greatly facilitate the people-to-people exchanges.”

Chinese Ambassador to Maldives, Wang Lixin

China remained one of the key source markets to Maldives for the past ten years. A total of 284,029 tourist arrivals were recorded from China to Maldives in 2019. Prior to closing of borders for China Market due to pandemic, a total of a total of 31,744 tourist arrivals were recorded in January from this market which was a 23% growth compared to the same period of the previous year.

According to tourist arrival updates by Tourism Ministry, a total of 1,141,122 tourists had visited Maldives up to September 18, 2022 with Indian market leading with 14.2 percent of the total arrivals. Russia, U.K, Germany, Italy and USA follows respectively. As of the same date 58,461 tourist beds are in operation in the island nation.