The foreign trade of south China's Hainan Province reached 93.3 billion yuan (about 14.4 billion U.S. dollars) in 2020, up 3 percent year on year, figures from Haikou Customs showed Friday.
Imports of the island province increased 16.8 percent to 65.66 billion yuan last year, while exports dropped by 19.6 percent to 27.64 billion yuan.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the European Union (EU), and the United States were the top three trading partners of Hainan last year. Bilateral trade between Hainan and the EU reached 15.49 billion yuan, increasing 36.5 percent year on year.
Varieties of imported and exported commodities grew from 2,378 in 2019 to 3,610 in 2020, with consumer goods imports reaching 33.71 billion yuan, up 109 percent year on year.
This can explain why duty-free sales reached 27.48 billion yuan in Hainan last year, up 103.7 percent, with 34.1 million items bought by 4.48 million consumers.
China last year released a master plan for the Hainan Free Trade Port, aiming to build the whole of Hainan Island into a globally influential, high-level free trade port by the middle of the century.
Hainan will make good use of the offshore duty-free policy and strive to achieve duty-free sales of over 60 billion yuan in 2021, according to a government report delivered at the annual session of the provincial legislature on Jan. 24.
From July 1, 2020, Hainan upgraded its polices on duty-free products. It also added three new duty-free shops to the previous four shops on Dec. 30, 2020 and plans to open more shops this year.
