China and Kazakhstan’s visa-free agreement marked its second anniversary on Monday, with more than 4.64 million cross-border trips recorded at Xinjiang ports in the past two years.

Over the two years since the agreement took effect on Nov 10, 2023, Urumqi Tianshan International Airport alone has handled over 179,000 visa-free passenger trips between the two countries, accounting for 10.3 percent of all the cross-border passenger trips through Xinjiang ports. More than 118,000 of them were Kazakh nationals entering China visa-free.

The Urumqi airport currently operates three regular international passenger routes connecting to Almaty, Astana and Shymkent.

“I come from Guangzhou. The visa-free policy is very convenient. I've already flown to Kazakhstan twice this year via Urumqi. Here you have more flight options,” said Yang Suijia, a passenger from Guangdong in the south.

“Driven by the visa-free agreement, more international airlines, including Scat and FlyArystan, have opened services at the Urumqi airport and increased flight frequencies between Urumqi and Kazakhstan. There are now around 50 round-trip flights per week, up 43 percent year on year,” said Wang Wei, officer at the Urumqi Exit and Entry Border Inspection Station.

This year alone, cross-border passenger traffic between China and Kazakhstan through Xinjiang ports has totaled 2.283 million, a 25.3 percent increase year on year.