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Russia hopes to restore soon volume of tourism travels with China, says Lavrov

Russian Foreign Minister stressed that the novel coronavirus pandemic dealt a major blow to the sphere of tourism

MOSCOW, March 22. /TASS/. Russia hopes that previous volumes of tourism travel exchanges with China, which recently deteriorated due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, will be restored in the near future, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with the Chinese mass media.

"We have been enjoying major volumes of tourism exchanges with China," the Russian minister said. "They increased significantly in recent years. Almost two million Chinese citizens visited Russia in 2019 before the pandemic outbreak."

Russia’s top diplomat stressed that the novel coronavirus pandemic dealt a major blow to the sphere of tourism.

"I am confident that with the normalization of the epidemiological situation - and this tendency is already obvious - we will manage to exert the necessary joint efforts for the soonest reopening of borders and resumption of mutual travels," Lavrov said.

"With the gradual ease of strict quarantine restrictions we need to eventually get rid of all of them," the Russian minister added.

Tags

Foreign policy Sergey Lavrov China Tourism

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