With tens of thousands of Chinese coming to Australia for business and tourism, the Trade minister has announced that Australia will introduce a three-year multiple entry visa for Chinese business travelers. Details of the visa are to be released shortly by DIBP.

Broad details of the visa were announced by Minister for Trade and Investment Andrew Rob, recently:

"Chinese business visitors will now be eligible to apply for a three year multiple entry visa, increasing the prospect of repeat visits to Australia, which would be warmly welcomed by our tourism sector...

"These changes will also support the government's ambitious trade and investment agenda and increase the opportunities to do business with China. Total Chinese investment in Australia grew more than eight-fold between 2002 and 2012, to 23 billion AU dollars (20 billion U.S. dollars) and we want to see stronger continued growth," Robb said.

China is reportedly now Australia's largest source of business visitors, representing 18.5 percent of all applications in the business visitor stream in the first quarter of 2013-14.

The Government says the introduction of the three-year, multiple-entry visa for Chinese business travellers follows the decision to grant increased seating capacity to Chinese airlines to help cater for increased demand during the busy Chinese New Year period in Australia.

It says that in the lead-up to Chinese New Year on January 31 its posts in China finalised more than 80,000 visa applications in one month.

Mr Robb says the focus on Chinese business travellers is just the beginning.

"It's not just China, we are ultimately looking to attract business, the ease of business, from across the globe and we are looking for all those sorts of things that can add up to a good experience for people coming into Australia to do business."