OREANDA-NEWS   Russia is considering a visa-free regime with China on a permanent basis. This was stated by Deputy head of the Russian Foreign Ministry Andrei Rudenko in an interview with the portal Arctic.ru .

Rudenko called the work on facilitating mutual travel one of the priorities of the department. He also said that by the end of 2025, the tourist flow between the countries increased by 17 percent and exceeded three million trips. "In the first quarter of this year, the growth rate of the number of tourist trips amounted to 50 percent in annual terms," Rudenko said.

The Deputy Foreign Minister shared that Russia has also begun work on simplifying visa procedures with Indonesia and Malaysia. "We also look forward to the early launch of a mechanism for group visa—free tourist exchanges between Russia and Vietnam," the diplomat concluded.

Earlier, Russia and China mutually extended the visa-free regime until 2027. Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, noted that the initiative had shown itself positively.