Starting yesterday, an e-ticket reimbursement voucher issued by China's State Administration of Taxation is being tested as a way for passengers to "baoxiao" their tickets and travel expenses.

In China, employees seek expense reimbursements, or "baoxiao", by providing their company accountants with special receipts called "fapiao" that vendors provide when services are rendered. If an employee does not have a standard fapiao to provide to an accountant, it is fairly difficult to get reimbursed for expenses.

E-tickets, which went into large-scale use earlier this year, have been shunned by many businesses because they did not provide an easy means to get an official fapiao to use for reimbursements. However with this trial use of vouchers, one of the biggest barriers for e-ticket use has been removed.

The voucher, which is called "Electronic Airline Ticket Voucher", will be in trial use for two years. As scheduled by IATA, China will replace paper air tickets with e-tickets completely in 2007.

Zhang Chunzhi, a representative from Air China, says that starting October this year, Air China will adopt a neutral selling system and will no longer issue paper tickets. China Eastern and China Southern are also speeding up the replacement of their tickets.