The past few days have seen controversial reports on Namibia allegedly trying to push for VISA exemption for Chinese passport holders.

The Chinese Ambassador to Namibia, Zhao Weiping, clears up some of these misunderstandings.

Namibia and China's mutual visa exemption agreement discussions started in 2019, when both sides agreed to pursue visa exemptions for their nationals, according to Chinese Ambassador Zhao Weiping.

"The relevant discussions between our two governments on this matter have actually started as early as 2019 in June that year during a visit to Namibia by Xu Ganlu, Commissioner of the Chinese National Immigration Administration. Both sides agreed to pursue active consultation on this matter, and later on, both sides had discussions on the text of the agreement."

Weiping stated that the discussions had, however, been paused following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Chinese Ambassador also dismissed reports that the agreement had already been implemented in March this year, stressing that the agreement is not something to rush into but something to carefully plan.

Answering the question of whether China will also grant Namibian passport holders visa exemptions, Weiping said that the current discussions are mutually beneficial.

"What we are discussing with the Namibian side is an agreement to grant a mutual visa exemption for all passport holders. I want to emphasise that it will not be a unilateral grant of visa exemption by the Namibian side to Chinese citizens. It's in fact a mutual granting; the Chinese side will also grant Namibian citizens visa granting for all passport holders."

So far, China has mutual visa exemption agreements with 152 countries, of those, 134 are on diplomatic passports, while 18 have a full mutual exemption for all passport holders.

Namibia is still in the talking stages with China.