Dongjiang Island pitches hard for domestic duty free shopping status

CHINA. Dongjiang Island in Tianjin is set to be the next “˜domestic duty free’ shopping location following the successful introduction of the concept on Hainan Island last year, according to the influential China Daily.

Negotiations with central government have been gathering pace since the initiative was first announced last year.

Dongjiang Island is in Binhai New Area, a 45 minute drive from downtown Tianjin and under two hours from Beijing.

“Situated adjacent to Beijing and Tianjin, where consumption is robust, the zone will mean residents do not have to travel to Hainan or Hong Kong (to shop),” Tianjin Port Chairman Yu Rumin told China Daily.

How China Daily reported the latest developments on domestic duty free shopping


The newspaper said that, following the success of the Hainan province breakthrough “several other cities, including Shanghai, now want to follow in its footsteps”.

Identifying the key driver of the government’s push to encouraging domestic duty free shopping, the report continued: “Sales of luxury goods on the Chinese mainland totalled US$1.75 billion in January, less than a quarter of the amount spent overseas, the World Luxury Association reported this month.”

An introduction to Sanya Duty Free, Hainan Island


“Many cities are now applying to be the ‘second Hainan’. In the long term, there will certainly be more, but the process will not be quick,” Professor Liu Huan of the Chinese University of Finance and Economics said. “It takes time for the central government to study the effects of the pilot program and to discreetly choose the next one.”

Binhai New Area is the country’s largest bonded port by size.

China is poised to become the world’s largest market for luxury goods by 2020, according to brokerage and investment group CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets. The country will generate 44% of global sales over the next decade, up from 15% at present, it said.

FOOTNOTE: The phenomenon of Chinese ‘domestic duty free’ shopping will be explored in the first issue of The Moodie Report China, which launches next month, published in bi-lingual, e-Zine format.

Jianhong Yuan joins the company today as Deputy Editor. A graduate of the University of Hubei, China, as well as the University of Bath, UK, he was formerly the Editor in Business of the Changjiang Times in Wuhan and a journalist specializing in economic and social affairs at the Wuhan Evening News. He has also worked for Southern Metropolitan News in Guangzhou and the Oriental Outlook Media Group in Shanghai. Jianhong can be contacted at Jian.Yuan@themoodiereport.com

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