The customs authorities in China's island province of Hainan have planned to optimize regulatory measures to boost duty-free shopping in 2025.
Known for its beautiful beaches and thriving duty-free shopping, Hainan is one of popular tourist resorts in China.
According to the Haikou Customs, duty-free spending during the New Year Day holiday this year totaled 130 million yuan (about 17.75 U.S. dollars), as major retailers launched a series of promotions to stimulate duty-free shopping to kickstart 2025.
The Haikou Customs rolled out measures including online postal tax payments to facilitate duty-free shopping. They also reached out to enterprises in advance to understand their demands, improved staffing, especially in holidays, and used technologies to ensure smooth operations.
"The Haikou Customs will keep streamline the regulatory process for offshore duty-free shopping, use information technology for better supervision, focus more on intelligent management and excellent service, and promote institutional innovation, so as to improve trade facilitation and foster a sound business environment for offshore duty-free operations," said Xie Dongliang, head of the duty-free and express mail management section at the Haikou Customs.
Haikou recorded total duty-free sales of 30.94 billion yuan (about 4 billion U.S. dollars) throughout the year 2024, according to the Haikou Customs.
Hainan Customs optimizes measures to boost duty-free shopping
Hainan Customs optimizes measures to boost duty-free shopping
The Shenzhou-23 crewed space mission conducted its last comprehensive practice before launch on Friday, completing function checks of all systems and other preparation work.
The combination of the spaceship and a Long March-2F carrier rocket was transported to the launch site last Saturday and is scheduled for launch in the coming days, with all facilities and equipment at the launch site in good condition, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).
Carried out by the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, the Xi'an Satellite Control Center, and various control stations under the coordination of the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center, the drill simulated all stages of the launch mission, including pre-launch preparations, liftoff, climb, and the in-orbit phase.
"The joint practice is to test the system's communication links, command capability, equipment, and personnel. Based on the current progress, everything is normal. What's going on in parallel is a full-system gas leak detection," He said.
The rehearsal validated the reliability of key systems, including the rocket, the spaceship, the launch site, the control and communication equipment, and the coordination between different systems. It also verified the functionality and technical status of the Shenzhou-23 spacecraft-rocket combination.
"The Shenzhou-23 spaceship is in the third batch of spacecraft after the completion of the construction of the space station. It incorporates many new quality control measures, and its payload transport capacity, reliability, and safety have all been significantly improved," said Li Zhe, an employee of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.
With all facilities in good condition, the Jiuquan launch site will later conduct rocket propellant filling and launch operations.
Search and recovery drills are also underway at the landing site, in preparation for the return of the Shenzhou-21 crew.
Shenzhou-23 crewed spaceship ready for launch
