The agreement, which will be enforced starting Monday, comes as Western countries increasingly seek Chinese business and investment, and mirrors a similar
US announcement last year.
"China and Canada have agreed to issue visas to each other's citizens with a validity period of up to 10 years," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at a press conference on the sidelines of the National People's Congress in Beijing. No other details were immediately available.
Ottawa last year cancelled a permanent residency visa for foreign investors popular with wealthy Chinese, thousands of whom reportedly had applications pending.
Every year Chinese travellers make more than 100 million outbound trips, tourism authorities say.
While most go to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, they represent a growing and increasingly coveted source of high-spending visitors.
In November, Beijing and Washington announced a reciprocal deal to extend student visas to five years, with business and tourist visas stretched out to a decade, up from one year.
The announcement came during a visit to China by US President Barack Obama.
There were 1.8 million Chinese visitors to the US last year, Obama said, contributing $21 billion to the economy and supporting more than 100,000 jobs.
Obama described the agreement as an "important breakthrough which will benefit our economies, and bring our people together."
Please
contact us in case of Copyright Infringement of the photo sourced from the internet, we will remove it within 24 hours.