Recently, three agencies including the Ministry of Finance ("MOF") have jointly issued the Announcement on the Duty-free Shopping Policy for Tourists Departing from Hainan Island (the "Announcement") which shall come into force as of July 1, 2020.
The Announcement expressly states that tourists departing from Hainan Island will be given an annual duty-free shopping quota of 100,000 per person, with no limits on the number of purchases; categories of duty-free products will be broadened to include additional seven types of products such as consumer electronics; limits are placed only on the single-purchase quantity of cosmetics, smartphones and alcohol products; import duties on inbound goods will be levied, in accordance with the regulations, on the value of products purchased by a tourist in excess of the duty-free quota or the quantity limit; and business operators qualified for distributing duty-free products may participate in the off-island duty-free business operations. Compared with the previous policy, the Announcement incorporates adjustments in six respects, including "increasing significantly the annual duty-free shopping quota per person from CNY30,000 to CNY100,000" and "raising the number of categories of duty-free products, up from 38 to 45".