China and South Korea pledged to boost people-to-people exchanges on Thursday, eyeing a target of 10 million people by 2016. To achieve this goal, both sides agreed to promote a visa-free policy.

As each other's largest source of tourists and overseas students, the two countries have maintained frequent people-to-people exchanges in recent decades.

On Thursday, President Xi Jinping laid out a more ambitious future, which observers said would encourage a new wave of public exchanges between the two neighbors.