Under the epidemic situation, the Chinese people's overseas consumption returned, and the island's tax-free expansion was at the right time.

　　Zhang Jiajia is from Guangzhou and works in a state-owned enterprise. Due to the epidemic and other reasons, it is not convenient to go to Hong Kong and Japan and South Korea recently. Some time ago, she bought a bunch of imported cosmetics in Hainan, with a total price of 8,000 yuan, nearly 3,000 yuan cheaper than in Tianhe City, Guangzhou.

　　"My quota has been used up this year." Zhang Jiajia said in an interview with First Financial, "Because I also bought a bag and two clothes before."

　　The issue she is most concerned about now is when the Hainan Islands New Tax Exemption Policy will be implemented.

　　On June 1, the "Overall Plan for the Construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port" (hereinafter referred to as the "Overall Plan") issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council granted Hainan many preferential policies, one of which was to relax the duty-free shopping quota for outlying islands and expand the types of duty-free goods. The tax-free shopping quota has increased from 30,000 yuan per person per year to 100,000 yuan per person per year. This is equivalent to a tax-free allowance for 20 Hong Kong purchases.

　　This means that consumers like Zhang Jiajia can purchase more duty-free goods in Hainan in the future. In the words of Zhang Jiajia, "the more goods you buy, the more money you save."

　　For Hainan, Wang Yiwu, former member of the Hainan Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and director of the Hainan Institute of Modern Management, pointed out in an interview with the First Financial Reporter that the island tax exemption policy can bring Hainan a huge amount of consumption. Return to income.

　　The industry generally believes that the policy is a "gift package" for Hainan. But to what extent this will bring "real gold and silver" to Hainan, it still needs time to verify.

　　The epidemic impacted sales by 30% to 40%

　　"If you travel to Hainan, I suggest that you bring more money and prepare to cut your hands." At the press conference of the "Overall Plan" held by the State Council Office on June 8, Zou Jiayi, Vice Minister of Finance, talked about Hainan's substantial Said when relaxing the tax-free shopping policy for outlying islands.

　　This "preparation to pick" atmosphere began from the moment the plane landed at Haikou Meilan Airport. "Sunshine Hainan welcomes you. Pay attention to the island tax exemption policy and benefits, and enjoy it with the island voucher within 6 months..." Recently, when the plane landed in Haikou, the first financial reporter received such a message from the Hainan Provincial Department of Tourism.

　　On June 22, the first financial reporter came to the pick-up point of Sanya International Duty Free City in Haikou Meilan Airport. People lined up to wait for the goods purchased in advance on the Hainan Duty Free website. In various duty-free shops at the airport, people push shopping carts and choose goods at ease.

　　"When the island tax allowance is adjusted to 100,000 yuan, we may come to Hainan again (within this year)." A couple from the mainland said this to the First Financial Reporter.

　　The couple also said that if they were not affected by the epidemic, they were either in Japan or South Korea at this time.

　　Although the number of tourists is gradually recovering, Haikou Meilan Airport Duty Free Shop is still suffering from the impact of the epidemic. According to the reporter's visual observation, compared with this time in previous years, there were significantly fewer tourists in Meilan Airport. Meilan Airport currently closes half of the boarding gates, and the duty-free shops in the airport are also closed by half.

　　A waiter at a duty-free shop provided a general report to the First Financial Reporter: "Compared to this time last year, our sales have decreased by at least 30% to 40%."

　　In order to attract consumers, duty-free shops have carried out various discounts, and some products have discounts as low as 30%. On some products, there is also a red notice board, which reads: "Buy it, buy it." Because there are fewer consumers, the waiter said: "Now I'm too busy."

　　"I am particularly looking forward to the implementation of the 100,000 yuan tax-free shopping quota policy as soon as possible." She added with a smile, "In this way, guests may be able to buy more goods, and I have made more mentions."

　　At the same time, after the release of the "Overall Plan", the local media in Hainan intensively launched the relevant island tax exemption interpretation policy.

　　Hainan Islands' duty-free shopping policy began in 2011. In that year, in order to speed up the construction and development of Hainan International Tourism Island, the State Council decided to conduct a pilot tax-free shopping policy for Hainan tourists.

　　The policy refers to domestic and foreign passengers who have reached the age of 16 from Hainan by air, train or ship to leave the island but do not leave the country. With the island information (flight information, train ticket information, ticket information) and valid ID documents, the implementation of the island Tax exemption policy in the tax-free shops, and the one-off preferential tax policy for carrying the outlying islands by myself.

　　Since the policy was implemented in 2011, it has undergone a total of five adjustments. At the beginning, it was stipulated that the amount of tax-free shopping per person should not exceed RMB 5,000, and then the amount of tax-free goods was gradually increased, and the variety of tax-free commodities continued to increase. Prior to the launch of the "General Plan" New Deal, the most recent adjustment was to increase the cumulative tax-free shopping limit per person per year for outlying island visitors to 30,000 yuan per year, and an unlimited number of times. The scope of passengers to which the tax exemption policy applies is also expanding. In 2011, only domestic and foreign passengers who left the island of Hainan by air but did not depart can purchase duty-free goods. In 2017, the scope was extended to passengers departing by train, and in 2018 to passengers departing by ship.

　　According to reports from relevant authoritative sources, the new policy of outlying duty-free shopping on the islands will soon be formally implemented. So how will it affect the Hainan Free Trade Port under construction in the future?

　　The future is comparable to Hong Kong

　　The island tax exemption policy once provided new consumption growth points for Hainan tourism. Statistics from Haikou Customs show that since the Hainan Islands Islands duty-free shopping policy was formally implemented in 2011, as of the first quarter of 2020, the Customs has supervised the sale of 72.01 million items of island duty-free goods, with a sales amount of 55.07 billion yuan and a shopping population of 16.097 million. Person-times.

　　Statistics show that from 2011 to 2019, Hainan's tax-free annual sales increased steadily from 986 million yuan to 13.6 billion yuan, and sales in 2019 increased by more than 30% year-on-year; the number of shoppers increased from 48.36 million in 2011 to 384 in 2019 Ten thousand people.

　　But when compared with South Korea, Hainan has a clear gap. A research report from Societe Generale Securities shows that the tax-free consumption of Chinese tourists to South Korea in 2019 is as high as 105.8 billion yuan, of which the average tourist consumption is 37 billion yuan.

　　This new tax-free policy for outlying islands may bring some new changes to Hainan. "The increase in the tax exemption limit for Hainan Islands can shift the enthusiasm and spending power of Chinese tourists shopping abroad to Hainan." Wang Yiwu said in an interview with the First Financial Reporter.

　　"This policy is very targeted." Zhang Yong, a researcher at the Comprehensive Research Institute of Shanghai Free Trade Zone of Fudan University, believes that due to the epidemic, Chinese people traveling abroad will be greatly affected in the short term, and Hainan can rely on the policy of tax-free shopping on islands To drain the real gold and silver spent by the Chinese “buy, buy, and buy” overseas to Hainan. This will not only promote Hainan’s tourism consumption and build an international tourism consumption center, but also stimulate the development of Hainan’s import and export trade.

　　Relevant reports show that in 2018, China's outbound tourism ranked first in the world, and the number of Chinese citizens' outbound tourism was nearly 150 million. In this year, Chinese citizens' consumption abroad was nearly 2 trillion yuan.

　　"This time the policy is very powerful. If we can continue to enrich the variety of commodities, I think it will be comparable to Hong Kong in the future." Liu Feng, director of the Research Center for Free Trade Ports with Chinese Characteristics of Hainan Normal University and a contracted expert of the Hainan Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, was interviewed by the First Financial Journal Shi added: "If 20% of these 2 trillion yuan of overseas consumption can be drained to Hainan, it would be 400 billion yuan."

　　At present, there are only 38 types of tax-free varieties in Hainan, which is significantly different from regions and countries such as Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and even Southeast Asia. The industry generally believes that enriching tax-free commodity categories will significantly increase the shopping rate of visitors to the store, thereby increasing the conversion rate of tourists visiting Hainan to purchase duty-free products.

　　The island tax exemption policy is an important measure to support the construction of Hainan International Tourism Consumption Center. In Wang Yiwu's view, Hainan's construction of an international tourism consumption center means that Hainan is a large duty-free supermarket covering the entire island. "As long as Hainan makes great efforts to build an international tourism and consumption center covering the whole island and build a world's largest, best, most convenient and most favorable tax-free supermarket, Hainan's economy is just around the corner," he said.

　　A practical problem is that the tax exemption policy is not unique to Hainan; the blue sky, white clouds, coconut wind and sea rhyme are not unique to Hainan. Why do people choose to travel and shop in Hainan?

　　Liu Feng told the First Financial Reporter, "Hainan's tourism experience is not cost-effective, and the price and accommodation consumption experience need to be improved. In terms of tourism consumption environment, compared with Japan, South Korea and some Southeast Asian countries, there are still not small Gap. This is a systematic project and Hainan is making up for the shortcomings."

　　In Liu Feng's view, the new tax-free island policy is only a breakthrough in promoting Hainan to build an international consumer tourism center. "Whether the international consumer tourism center can be built depends on how well Hainan's own business environment and tourism consumption environment are created."

　　(Zhang Jiajia is a pseudonym in the text)

　　Author: Lin Chun Ting