Australia on November 22 announced that it will reopen to 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 reopening 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 most non-Australians.

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

There is no word yet on when leisure travellers may be able to return to Australia.

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.