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Hainan's Haikou to expand duty free area to 100,000 square meters

Four duty free shops are currently open on Hainan

HAIKOU, July 27. /TASS/. The Haikou authorities are planning to significantly expand the duty free zone located in the southwestern district of Qiongshan. It occupies an area of 22,000 square meters, and will be expanded to 102,000 square meters, according to the Hainan Daily.

This is a cluster of duty free shops "Riyue", which is located on the city square of the same name in Haikou. When expanding this duty free zone, the administration plans to use the underground space as well. The municipal authorities of the Qiongshan district intend to help attract investment for the development of this territory, as well as to carry out measures to boost consumption, the news outlet says. In addition, the Haikou administration is going to actively develop the tourism industry in this area, creating better conditions for visiting the island for both duty free zones and cultural sites, such as the Hainan Museum, the Minchan Pagoda and the Five Noble Men Shrine (Ugunci Temple).

The Riyue Duty Free Mall in Haikou was opened in January 2019. After an increase introduced on July 1, the quota for purchases in Hainan duty free stores per person reached 100,000 yuan (about 14,200 dollars), the daily flow of customers on some days at the store exceeded 10,000 people.

Four duty free shops are currently open on Hainan: two of them are located in the provincial capital, Haikou, the rest — in Sanya and the coastal town of Boao. According to the latest data, their sales in May amounted to more than 1.9 billion yuan (about $ 279 million), which is by 141% more compared to the same period last year.

Over the recent years, Hainan's duty free zones have shown solid revenue growth. Thus, in 2018, sales in duty free shops on Hainan reached 10.1 billion yuan (about $ 1.47 billion), which is about 26% of the corresponding national figure. Last year, sales grew by more than 34%, to 13.61 billion yuan ($ 1.97 billion).

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