SYDNEY, Nov 22, 2021 (BSS/AFP) - Australia announced Monday it will again
welcome foreign students and skilled workers from next month, easing some of
the world's most stringent pandemic travel restrictions.

  Twenty months after Australia slammed shut its borders, some visa holders -
- as well as Japanese and South Korean citizens -- will be able to enter from
December 1.

  "Australia is re-opening to the world," said Home Affairs Minister Karen
Andrews as she announced the news, adding it was "yet another step forward
for Australia."

  The government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison lifted restrictions on
Australians travelling overseas last month, sparking a flood of travel
bookings for the southern hemisphere summer. But Morrison -- who is hoping to
be re-elected next year -- had pointedly refused to relax travel rules for
non-Australians.

  That move left an estimated 1.4 million skilled visa holders stuck in
Australia, unable to return if they decided to leave.

  Business groups had lobbied hard for vaccinated visa holders to be allowed
to return, as they struggle to fill jobs and gird for the beginning of a
third year of restrictions.

  Among those most vocal in calling for rules to be further relaxed was the
beleaguered university sector.

  According to Universities Australia, an industry group, 130,000
international students remain outside the country.

  There had been fears that many Asian students would opt to study in person
in the United States or Europe rather than pay for online courses based in
Australia.

  There is no word yet on when leisure travellers may be able to return to
Australia, a blow to the equally hard-hit tourism sector, which has seen
visitor numbers virtually evaporate since borders were closed in March 2020.

  While some Australian states still require quarantine, vaccinated
Australians, some visa holders and citizens of Japan, South Korea and
Singapore will now be able to visit Australia with only a pre-departure
negative Covid-19 test.