Customers shopping at the cdf mall in Sanya, a coastal city at the southern tip of Hainan Island. [Photo by Zuo Jianan/chinadaily.com.cn]

Duty-free sales networks around Hainan island will be expanded to better meet domestic needs for imported goods in the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) period, with sales volume of duty-free items expected to hit 300 billion yuan in five years, said Feng Fei, acting governor of the province,on Sunday.

In his government work report addressed to the Fourth Session of the Sixth People's Congress of Hainan Province, which opened in Haikou, the provincial capital, Feng said that Hainan will promote mail delivery of duty-free goods and other means to reach an annual sales record of more than 60 billion yuan this year.

In 2020, more than 3.4 million shoppers visited duty-free centers in Hainan, spending 31.58 billion yuan on duty-free goods, according to Haikou Customs.

Customers shopping at the cdf mall in Sanya, a coastal city at the southern tip of Hainan Island. [Photo by Zuo Jianan/chinadaily.com.cn]

Business at Hainan's duty-free shopping centers have been brisk since midsummer, when Hainan raised the offshore duty-free shopping quota to 100,000 yuan per person annually from the previous 30,000 yuan. Categories of goods were also expanded from 38 to 45, with wine and electronic products added to the duty-free list.

Feng, the acting governor, said that more than 800 world-class brands would be represented at the first China International Consumer Goods Expo, to be held in Haikou from May 7 to 10.

Customers shopping at the cdf mall in Sanya, a coastal city at the southern tip of Hainan Island. [Photo by Zuo Jianan/chinadaily.com.cn]

To be sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce and the Hainan provincial government, the event was included in the master plan for the construction of the Hainan free trade port released by the central government in June. It aims to build Hainan, which is about 32 times the size of Hong Kong, into a globally influential, high-level, free trade port by the middle of the century.

Imports and sales of foreign commodities for the expo will be exempt from duties.