BEIJING - China has eased COVID curbs for domestic group tours organised by travel agencies, the culture and tourism ministry said on Tuesday.

Tourists can make cross-province trips organised by travel agencies with proof of negative test results, and are no longer subject to an earlier rule that ban some of such trips when COVID cases emerge, the ministry said in a statement.

Travel agents were previously suspended from organising group tourism trips linking a county that has reported areas deemed of high or medium COVID risk, and areas outside the province where the county is based.

(Reporting by Roxanne Liu, Ella Cao and Ryan Woo, Editing by Angus MacSwan)