1.
The company (foreign or Chinese) has to apply at the district-level FAO or municipal-level authority it usually deals with, e.g. Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce (SCOFCOM), Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission, etc
.
2. The district FAO or municipal authority will examine the application, and if the employee is deemed to be
essential to business operations
, it will forward the application to the Shanghai FAO and notify the company.
3. The
Shanghai FAO
will review the application and issue a visa notification to the MFA and the relevant Chinese embassy or consulate in the country where the employee is located, as well as a hard copy of the notification to the company. The company will fax or scan this to the employee for him/her to present at the Chinese embassy or consulate for the visa application. The hard copy has a bar code that allows the embassy or consulate to access all information collected by the Shanghai authorities. Additional information may still be required by the MFA and embassy or consulate.
4. With the visa, the employee will be able to board a commercial flight or a chartered flight to China.
5. When the plane arrives in Shanghai, Customs officials will board it to screen passengers. After the passengers disembark, a
nucleic acid test (NAT)
will be carried out at the airport. Passengers with symptoms such as fever or coughing will be subject to further medical observation at the airport. If he/she has no such symptoms, the employee will be directed to the representatives of the district of the company that made the application at the airport. The employee will be taken to a designated facility to wait for the results of the NAT, which can take up to one day.
6. If the
NAT result is positive
, the employee will be taken by representatives of the Disease Control Centre (CDC) to designated facilities for medical observation and treatment. If the
NAT is negative
, the employee will be subject to a
fourteen-day quarantine at the designated facility
, the cost for which will be borne by the company or the individual.