Offshore duty-free shopping thrives in Hainan

South China's Hainan province's offshore duty-free sales reached 90.6 billion yuan ($13.5 billion) from July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2022, while 125 million commodities were bought by 12.28 million consumers in that period, according to Haikou Customs.

This can be attributed to Hainan's favorable duty-free policy. The duty-free shopping policy was updated and implemented in July 2020. In addition to increasing the annual duty-free shopping quota in Hainan from 30,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan per person incrementally each year, the policy also expanded the number of categories of duty-free goods from 38 to 45. The 8,000-yuan duty-free cap for a single item was also canceled.

Currently, the province is home to nine duty-free shops. During the past two years, the offshore duty-free shops in Hainan have launched various forms of promotional activities. According to the customs, the average daily shopping amount of offshore duty-free shopping in Hainan reached 124 million yuan, an increase of 257 percent compared with that before the implementation of the new policy. The top three commodities by sales amount were cosmetics, watches, and jewelry.

In order to further expand the scale of duty-free consumption, the Haikou International Duty Free City project is under construction and will become the largest international duty-free commercial complex in Asia after its opening later this year.

On June 28, the first Hainan International Offshore Duty Free Shopping Festival kicked off. More than 50 marketing activities will be held in the second half year to promote the recovery of offshore duty-free sales.