"Portugal sinalizou essa matéria, que gostaríamos muito de ser englobados no grupo de países" with the exemption, Pedro Reis told Lusa in Macau, where he is representing Portugal at the 6th ministerial conference of the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-Speaking Countries, better known as the Macau Forum.

The Chinese government extended in March the visa exemption policy for stays of up to 15 days to six European countries -- Switzerland, Ireland, Hungary, Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg -- after having initially adopted the same measure for Germany, Spain, France, Italy and the Netherlands at the end of last year.

The measure placed Portugal among the few Western European countries whose nationals do not benefit from the exemption to enter the territory of the world's second largest economy.

Pedro Reis noted that the issue was raised during the Sino-Lusophone summit, which began on Sunday and runs until Tuesday in the Chinese semi-autonomous region.

"We find it a beautiful instrument, very pragmatic, very much in line with the pace of economic cooperation that we want to promote here. Nowadays, we need to be very agile in this matter. Especially when we see European partners with access to this regime. Therefore, we have signalled positively that there are already about 10 countries, in two waves, and it would be interesting for us to be able to access this instrument as well," he said.

On the reasons that led Beijing to exclude Portugal so far, the Minister of Economy referred the answer to the Chinese side: "it is a question more for China than for Portugal".

"Portugal's institutional duty is to state as interesting [access to the exemption] and our commitment to also have access to this instrument," he said.

In March, the Portuguese ambassador in Beijing, Paulo Nascimento, told Lusa that he "did not understand" the criterion that led the Chinese authorities to exclude Portugal.

"I do not believe that there is negative discrimination here, in the sense of saying that China is doing this to signal something to Portugal, I do not think that is the case," he said.

"But I cannot understand the criterion," he said.

On his side, the Chinese ambassador in Lisbon, Zhao Bentang, predicted that the inclusion will happen in the next phase of visa exemption, a gradual process based on the volume of trade, personal exchanges and cooperation projects between the two countries.

"In the next phase, with the expansion, I think Portugal will be included in the visa exemption list. To promote a measure, a policy, a gradual process is always necessary," the diplomat justified to Lusa in March, noting that the first countries on Beijing's list "have a greater amount of personal and business exchanges or have more cooperation projects", and therefore a greater need to travel to China.

China's adoption of a visa exemption policy for nationals of several countries, which also includes Malaysia or Singapore, comes after an 80% drop in foreign direct investment in the country in 2023, compared to 2022, and a 60% reduction in the number of visitors last year, compared to 2019, the last year before the covid-19 pandemic.

Leia Também: "Agilizar". Portugal pretende reformular sistema de agendamento de vistos (Portuguese version)