More duty-free shops to boost tourism and economy

The central authorities have recently issued a regulation on duty-free shops to promote tourism. The regulation will apply to duty-free shops in eight cities, where some new duty-free shops are to be opened. The regulation comes into effect on Oct 1.

According to the regulation, duty-free shops will be allowed to sell commodities to people bearing documents proving they are leaving the Chinese mainland within 60 days. Beginning July 2023, China has been offering a 144-hour visa-free policy to visitors from 54 countries via 37 ports. Because of such relaxations, the number of foreigners entering the mainland in the first half of 2024 reached 14.6 million, 152.7 percent higher than that in the first half of 2023, when 8.5 million tourists made a visa-free entry.

On TikTok, videos shared with the ChinaTravel hashtag were viewed a record 700 million times, while Feeyo, an app about flight schedules, shows the total number of international flights in the first half of 2024 had recovered to over 70 percent that of 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The increasing number of overseas tourists arriving in China has laid a sound economic basis for enlarging the duty-free shop sector.

But foreign travelers are apparently not the only group that will benefit from the duty-free shops. Even domestic residents who are planning an overseas trip get to buy a wide range of things from these shops ahead of an overseas trip.