The "new" duty-free economy has helped the recovery of consumption in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

Beijing, May 5 (Chinanews.com) -- The duty-free economy is "new" to help the recovery of consumption in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

Zhongxin financial reporter Xia Bin

In 2022, Chinese officials issued the "Opinions on Further Unleashing Consumption Potential and Promoting the Sustainable Recovery of Consumption", proposing to improve the policy of duty-free shops in the city and plan to build a number of duty-free shops with Chinese characteristics. Since then, China's duty-free economy is attracting increasing attention, as one of the measures to promote consumption combination, duty-free consumption may usher in a new boom.

Chinese people are the "main force" of global luxury consumption, but their domestic market share is low, and sales through various duty-free shops account for a small proportion of the total luxury consumption of Chinese people. According to Bain & Company, the Chinese market accounted for about 2021% of total global luxury consumption in 21, and it is predicted that China is expected to become the world's largest luxury market by 2025.

The growing luxury consumer market and the low proportion of domestic duty-free shop sales indicate that China's duty-free industry still has great potential.

Recently, Zhuhai Duty-free Gongbei Port Entry Duty-free Shop, which has attracted much attention from the market, has attracted much attention from the market. Relying on Zhuhai's high-quality operation strength and good market reputation, Gongbei Port Entry Duty Free Shop has joined hands with international and domestic high-end aromatic, tobacco, wine, fashion boutique and other categories to re-open, activating new vitality for tourism consumption in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

It is reported that the Gongbei Port Entry Duty-free Shop, located at the core of the permanent corridor of entry at the port, has an operating area of 3889,<> square meters and a total of two floors. Among them, the first floor is mainly international high-end aromatherapy and best-selling tobacco and alcohol products; The second floor is dominated by the world's leading foreign wine brand image stores, light luxury and fashion watches, international famous brand sunglasses and imported daily consumer goods with high quality and low price.

Gongbei Port, as an important "window" and "test field" for China's opening to the outside world, has leapt from a small fishing village pass in the 80s of last century to "the first mainland road port in China", one of the most dynamic tourism retail markets in China, and an important intersection of people, logistics, information and capital flows in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

The new upgrade of the Gongbei Port Entry Duty Free Shop is one of the key commercial projects for Zhuhai Duty Free to seize the opportunity to fully integrate into the strategic development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and it is also an important force for deepening reform and opening up and promoting the high-quality development of enterprises.

"Gongbei Port Entry Duty Free Shop is not only our 'place of origin', but also our 'foothold', and it is also our 'place of strength' for our future high-quality development." We are committed to building the Gongbei Port Inbound Duty Free Shop into the best tourism consumption destination in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and a demonstration benchmark project to showcase the business and trade vitality of the Greater Bay Area. Chen Hui, general manager of Zhuhai Duty Free Group, said.

It should be noted that at present, China is forming a new development pattern with domestic circulation as the main body and domestic and international dual circulation promoting each other. The duty-free economy is an important node of the "dual circulation" of domestic and foreign consumer markets, and plays an important role in attracting consumption return and activating the consumption economy.

Niu Baozhuang, a professor at the School of Business Administration of South China University of Technology, pointed out that key cities in Guangdong should strive to set up duty-free shops in the city, pilot in central consumer cities, and take the lead in exploring a moderate relaxation of duty-free shopping quotas in accordance with cross-border e-commerce standards. It is necessary to make full use of favorable conditions, speed up the layout of the duty-free economy, and form the brand effect of Guangdong's "shopping paradise".

He made suggestions to actively seek relevant policies from the state and support the promotion of leading retail enterprises to obtain tax-free business qualifications. Taking advantage of the opportunity of Shenzhen Qianhai and Zhuhai Hengqin to build "special zones within special zones", we will strive to pilot the relevant tax exemption policy for outlying islands in the designated areas of Qianhai and Hengqin.

Wang Jichang, a researcher at the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Research Institute, said that the duty-free industry plays an important role in promoting tourism consumption, increasing foreign exchange income and serving tourists. At present, China's duty-free shops mainly include port duty-free shops, outlying island duty-free shops and city duty-free shops. Relevant documents issued by many cities in Guangdong Province have proposed the development of a duty-free economy and support the establishment of duty-free shops in cities and port duty-free shops.

"It can be said that the development of a duty-free economy is of positive significance to building an international consumption hub in the Greater Bay Area and responding to the national dual circulation strategy." Wang Jichang said.

It is worth noting that in order to promote the integration of port duty-free shopping with international standards and keep up with the new trend of consumption, the proportion of fragrance categories of the new Gongbei Port Entry Duty-free Shop has increased significantly, with the high-end fragrance business area accounting for about 70% of the area of the first floor, and more than 100 international high-end fragrance brands have settled in.

"Gongbei Port is an important benchmark for the duty-free economy in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and L'Oréal Group's entry into the country with its many high-end cosmetics brands is another milestone project for the Group's close cooperation between the land port and Zhuhai Duty Free for many years." The relevant person in charge of L'Oréal Travel Retail China said. It is understood that this time L'Oréal Group introduced high-end brands such as Kiehl's and Saint Laurent into land ports for the first time.

"Zhuhai Duty Free hopes to take the opportunity of the renovation and upgrading of the duty-free shops at Gongbei Port to gather more suppliers and partners, build a benign competition and cooperation platform, and jointly strengthen and expand the duty-free consumer market." Chen Hui said. In recent years, Zhuhai Duty Free has continuously improved its supply chain, including promoting direct procurement, increasing the procurement of fragrance products, and innovating the business philosophy and development paradigm of port duty-free shops.

In addition, Zhuhai Duty Free also aims to provide consumers with a better experience by improving the membership system, building an online platform for cultivation, promoting the construction of smart stores and intelligent storage centers, and stepping up internal strength.

The research report of Cinda Securities pointed out that Zhuhai Duty Free has laid out a number of duty-free shops in the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, Zhuhai-Hong Kong and Zhuhai-Macao ports, occupying the core window of the entry and exit ports of Zhuhai, Hong Kong and Macao. With the recovery of inbound and outbound passenger flow, Zhuhai, as a port duty-free leader with multiple high-quality traffic entrances in card slots, is expected to benefit significantly from duty-free revenue and performance. At present, the layout of Zhuhai duty-free in various ports in Zhuhai has been relatively complete, and the future increase comes from the continuous consolidation of existing business, and the expansion of ports across the country is also worth looking forward to. (End)