BEIJING, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- China will likely raise the cap on the amount of annual duty-free purchases in the island province of Hainan and increase the number of offshore duty-free shops, the Shanghai Securities News reported on Monday.
At present, non-Hainan residents are allowed to buy duty-free products worth up to 16,000 yuan each year before they leave the island by flight or train.
The State Council, China's cabinet, gave Hainan permission to run a trial offshore duty-free program on April 20, 2011, to help develop the island into a world-class tourist destination by 2020.
According to statistics, from April 20, 2011 to April 19, 2018, the two offshore duty-free shops in Sanya and Haikou sold about 47.97 million duty-free products worth 37.59 billion yuan, with the number of the buyers reaching about 11.54 million.
This year, during the National Day holiday from October 1 to 7, the two duty-free shops received 160,300 tourists, up 4.41 percent year on year, with sales totaling 240 million yuan, up 16.81 percent year on year. (Edited by Hu Pingchao, hupingchao@xinhua.org)
A single purchase
