Duty-free shopping fuels boom in Hainan's economy

The testing personnel of Haikou Customs Technology Center carry out experimental treatment on duty-free cosmetics on Dec 15, 2022. ZHANG MAO/FOR CHINA DAILY

Hainan province's liberalized offshore duty-free shopping policy, which is part of its ambitious free-trade port development, is attracting growing interest from powerful Chinese online and offline retailers who hope to enter the market. With an aim of boosting the high-quality construction of the Hainan free trade port, an announcement on Hainan's offshore duty-free shopping policy was issued and came into effect on July 1, 2020.

The duty-free policy is expected to boost domestic consumption and help attract overseas consumption. Statistics from Haikou Customs showed that it has supervised a total of 101.7 billion yuan of duty-free sales, or 140 million items, from a total of 13.61 million consumers when they left the island from July in 2020 to December in 2022. Over the past years since the implementation of Hainan's offshore duty-free policy, customs officers have worked together to ensure the offshore duty-free goods enter the county smoothly and safely so that consumers can purchase high quality duty-free goods.