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China's resort island relaxes duty-free shopping restrictions

Xinhua, January 29, 2016 Adjust font size:

The popular holiday island of Hainan in southern China will relax limits on offshore duty-free shopping from Feb. 1.

The new policy allows non-locals to buy duty-free products worth up to 16,000 yuan (2,442 U.S. dollars) before they take flights to leave the island, without any restriction on the number of purchases, said Wang Huiping, deputy head of the provincial finance department, on Friday.

Currently, non-locals are allowed to buy duty-free items in Hainan twice a year, each purchase cannot be more than 8,000 yuan.

In addition, the new policy will see the island's two duty-free shops launch online services that will enable travelers to order on the Internet and pick the products at the airport, Wang said.

One shop is located in the provincial capital of Haikou and the other, the world's largest, in the resort city of Sanya.

Wang said the new measure, which is more flexible than the previous version, would help duty-free sales and tourism in Hainan.

The State Council, China's cabinet, gave Hainan permission to run a trial duty-free program in April 2011, part of a wider effort to make the island a world-class tourist destination by 2020 and to lure back luxury shoppers. Endi