Yoshihide Suga, Prime Minister of Japan, is set to make a decision on new restrictions this week in an effort to curb the spread of the newly-detected COVID-19 variant.
By declaring a state of emergency, this decision will likely include measures such as cutting off reciprocal business travel agreements with 11 countries such as Singapore, China and South Korea among others, reports Nikkei Asia.
Japanese residents and foreigners that are residing in the country are expected to be exempt. Only last month, the country stopped the issuance of new visas to foreign visitors as a new COVID-19 variant began to spread in the United Kingdom and other countries. However, at that time, business travel agreements were spared from the new restrictions.
“If a variant is found in the other country, [entry] will be stopped immediately,” said Suga, according to Nikkei Asia.
According to the country’s immigration bureau, Chinese and Vietnamese nationals have accounted for the majority of inbound traffic under the business travel agreements.
Only a Few days ago, Japan had issued travel guidelines for Indians and the country had also banned entry of foreign travellers until end-January.