New policy set to woo more customers to Hainan free trade port
 updatetime:2020-07-03 09:01:32   Views:0 Source:People's Daily Online

Xiao Meng was one of the first customers to go duty-free shopping in Hainan after the province increased its duty-free shopping quota and added more product categories in a bid to bring in customers.

For 17,000 yuan ($2,406), Xiao bought a luxury watch at a store in Haikou Riyue Plaza in Haikou, the provincial capital. Before the lifting of the 8,000-yuan limit on a single duty-free product, she would have had to spend 4,000 yuan more on the watch.

“With the amount of money I saved, I could buy tickets for return flights between Guangzhou, where I came from, and Hainan,” she said excitedly.

As part of the efforts to boost the development of the Hainan Free Trade Port, Hainan has increased the annual offshore duty-free shopping quota for visitors to 100,000 yuan per year from 30,000 yuan, and removed the tax-free limit of 8,000 yuan for a single product. It also reduced the number of categories with a single-purchase quantity limit.

“The policy will undoubtedly boost the market,” said Cao Ying, an official with the office of the Free Trade Port.

One day after duty free stores in Hainan reopened on Feb. 20, the Sanya International Duty Free Shopping Complex saw online sales of 44.3 million yuan, a single-day record. In May, sales of duty-free goods in Hainan reached nearly 2 billion yuan, up 147.9 percent year-on-year.

Last year, 3.8 million people spent 13.6 billion yuan at duty-free stores in Hainan, compared with 483,600 people spending 986 million yuan in 2011.

Hainan’s foreign trade volume was 90.6 billion yuan in 2019, up 6.8 percent year-on-year, and consumer goods became Hainan’s number one imported commodity. To improve the tourist experience, Hainan will build a better consumer and tourist market and take further steps to build itself into an international tourist and consumption center.


Web Editor:MXJ