Canada's minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, Ahmed Hussen (L2),cuts the ribbon at the opening ceremony of a new visa application centers with Huang Xiqiang (L3), deputy director of the Foreign Affairs Office of Jiangsu Provincial People's Government and Consul General of Canada in Shanghai Weldon Epp (L1) in Nanjing on November 17. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn]

Canada's minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, Ahmed Hussen, attended the opening ceremony for a visa application center in Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu province on November 17.

Seven new visa application centers have recently been opened in China by Canada, in the hope of improving the service for Chinese visa applicants.To make the application easier than ever, all the centers will be able to process transactions via UnionPay cards by early 2018.

"All of these service improvements will allow us to better serve an increasing number of visa applications from China," said Hussen at the opening ceremony. "We're very happy to see more and more Chinese nationals visiting Canada.Not only does it bring economic benefits to Canada's tourism and transportation industries, among others, but it also creates new opportunities for cultural ties between our countries."

So far, in 2017, Canada has already processed a record 500,000 finalized applications from Chinese mainland. That's up from about 467,000 in 2016 - a 15 percent increase.