Beijing, EFE.- Starting today Chinese citizens who wish to visit Dominican Republic on business or as tourists can get a visa in the Caribbean country’s Trade Development Office in Beijing, despite the lack of diplomatic ties and Taiwan’s historic ties with Santo Domingo , EFE reports.

Office representative Rosa Ng on Thursday presented the Consular Management System which directly links the Foreign Relations Ministry in Santo Domingo, in adherence to an agreement signed by the two governments in 1997.

"The Chinese Government had much interest in its compliance. The Chinese Foreign Ministry has helped us so that China Mobile authorized our engineers to install a static IP which allows direct communication to send documents for the Foreign Relations to authorize the visas," the Dominican representative said.

Ng said he System, in addition to the one already installed in the Hong Kong region, Japan and South Korea, "will allow greater transparency because visa  payments  will be done through a fund" and will provide around 300 services to Dominican residents in China, such as passport renewals or the legalization of documents.

The Trade Office Website also features "a tool for services in Spanish and mandarin to provide useful information to companies from both countries and favorable conditions for tourism in the Caribbean country," said Ng, who arrived in Beijing just six months ago.

According to the China’s Office in Santo Domingo, the US$1.5 billion in bilateral trade is mostly from the estimated 1,500 Dominican companies that import Chinese products.

Taiwan is among the Asian countries with the longest standing relations with Dominican Republic, but recent setbacks in diplomatic ties in Latin American have hindered Taipei’s economic clout.