The US State Department has temporarily halted visa applications for Chinese and Indian nationals with special skills because of a "dramatic increase" in worldwide demand for the visas.

A State Department spokesperson told China Daily in an email that it halted the application process for EB-1 visas to make sure it does not exceed the allotted annual limit, which is about 40,000 per fiscal year, which runs from October to October. No more than 7 percent of all visas can go to applicants from any one country, which means 2,800 each for China and India.

In the past, however, those two countries have received more than their standard allotment because the number of applications worldwide is typically less than the total number of visas available. The surplus could be used as needed.