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Overseas investors are to be allowed to set up wholly owned travel agencies in the country, two-and-a-half years ahead of the schedule agreed with the World Trade organization. The China National Tourism Administration and the Ministry of Commerce issued a provisional rule on Saturday, lifting the ban on setting up travel agencies in China that are controlled or wholly owned by foreign entities. The rule will be effective 30 days after its issue, meaning July 14. Under the rule, overseas investors will be able to set up travel agencies in the State Council-approved national tourism zones in Beijing, Shanghai, the cities of GuangZhou and Shenzhen in South China's Guangdong Province, or Xi'an in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province. But such travel agencies will not be permitted to arrange tours for Chinese mainland citizens to foreign countries or to the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions or Taiwan Province. Their business is expected to be restricted to visits to the Chinese mainland of foreign tourists and tours within the Chinese mainland by Chinese tourists. In normal circumstances, each overseas investor will be given approval to set up in China only one travel agency that is controlled or wholly owned by it, the provisional rule stipulates.