China announces trade fair to boost Hainan’s duty-free status, show commitment to opening up

The first edition of the China International Consumer Products Expo, also known as the Hainan Expo, will take place from May 7 to May 10

Beijing hopes the fair will enhance the status of Hainan free-trade port and promote government’s ‘high-level opening up to the outside world’

3-MIN READ3-MIN

The inaugural Hainan Expo will take place in May as Beijing pushes ahead with plans to transform the island into a duty-free shopping hub. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 8:00pm, 24 Mar 2021Updated: 8:00pm, 24 Mar 2021

China announced on Wednesday plans to hold a huge trade fair in Hainan as part of an effort to turn the tropical island into a duty-free destination, while sending a message that the country’s appetite for Western consumer goods was undiminished despite rising geopolitical tensions.

Beijing also hopes the event will spur consumer spending, which is recovering slowly from the coronavirus pandemic, and is at the heart of the government’s “dual-circulation” strategy that aims to reduce China’s dependence on overseas markets and technology for long-term development.

The first edition of the China International Consumer Products Expo, also known as the Hainan Expo, will take place from May 7-10 in Haikou, the capital of Hainan province, China’s Ministry and Commerce and the provincial government jointly announced. It will be the country’s first state-level exhibition focused on premium consumer goods, the organisers said.

China unveiled plans in June last year to transform the 35,000 sq km island a free-trade port, a move widely seen as a rebuff Hong Kong – long the most popular destination with mainland tourists for duty-free shopping – following months of anti-government protests against the unpopular national security law.

“Convening the Hainan Expo … is to help make Hainan into an international tourism and shopping centre, which is of great significance to building the Hainan free-trade port,” Wang Bingnan, vice-minister of commerce, said at a press conference.

Chinese citizens can spend as much as 100,000 yuan (US$15,300) per person every year at duty-free shops on the island, up from the previous limit of 30,000 yuan, according to a special policy package for Hainan unveiled last June.

Offshore duty-free sales on Hainan island soared by 319.7 per cent from a year earlier to 8.3 billion yuan in the January-February period, after an annual rise of 103.7 per cent in 2020, according to customs data.

In contrast, Hong Kong’s retail sales fell 13.6 per cent in January amid the pandemic, plummeting for the 24th straight month. Sales of jewellery, watches, clocks and valuable gifts, which depend heavily on mainland tourists, shrank 31.7 per cent.