BEIJING, June 3 (AP) -- A US visa information center in Shanghai will reopen Friday, more than one month after the Chinese government shut it down because of complaints of overcharging, the US Embassy said.

The All-China Visa Information Center, run by a subcontractor, took calls from people in China with questions about how to apply for a US visa or make an appointment for a visa interview.

Its closure made it impossible for Chinese to make advance appointments for visa interviews, although American diplomats said the actual disruption had been minimal because of long backlogs.

Interviews at the Shanghai consulate had been booked through to June 22, although other consulates recently began taking walk-in interviews after their backlogs were exhausted, a Shanghai consulate spokeswoman said.

"We have been operating pretty much normally. We've had a full load of visa interviews," the spokeswoman said. The US issues about 180,000 non-immigrant visas to Chinese citizens each year.

The center was ordered to cease operations in April, about a month after it opened. China's Foreign Ministry cited complaints by Chinese citizens that it was charging too much money.

The phone call charges 54 yuan every 12 minutes, though the ordinary call rate is around 0.2-0.3 yuan every three minutes.

Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said then that a police investigation showed that the call center "had not been authorized" and was "an illegal business." He did not elaborate.

Liu Jianchao, another ministry spokesman, said Thursday that the subcontractor had "realized its problems" and has adjusted its pricing. The government has issued a license to the company, Liu said. No other details were provided.

The US Embassy in Beijing said in a statement Thursday that the center will introduce cheaper pre-paid cards that would allow applicants to make shorter calls and save money.

China tightened its rules on issuing visas to American citizens in March in retaliation for Washington's fingerprinting of Chinese visa applicants. It was not clear if that dispute was related to the visa center's closure.