TOKYO - Japan will start from July to issue multiple-entry visas for individual Chinese tourists, who are willing to travel to areas damaged by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, according to the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday.

The new program requires tourists to stay at least overnight in one of the three northeastern prefectures affected by the quake, which are Fukushima, Iwate or Miyagi, according to the ministry.

It also requires tourists from China to have certain amount of buying power, according to Japanese media reports.

Under the new program, individual Chinese tourists can enter Japan as many times as applied for within three years with a maximum stay of 90 days per visit. The tourists will be free to stay anywhere in Japan from their second visit onward.

The program is aimed at achieving a recovery in the number of people visiting Japan after the disaster, according to the ministry.

The number of visas issued to Chinese nationals by Japan had dropped to 742,982 in 2011, compared with 1.13 million in 2010, according to ministry statistics.