Beijing’s new duty-free allowance for mainland visitors to Macao and Hong Kong has been expanded to include almost all ports of entry to the mainland, the Macao Customs Service announced this morning.
The initiative raised the duty-free threshold from 5,000 yuan to 12,000 yuan for mainlander tourists shopping within either SAR (provided they’re aged 18 or over), and to 15,000 yuan for shops located at the border crossings themselves.
The new rule hit six border crossings across both SARs on 1 July, with the remainder joining the scheme today – bar the first-line customs area of Hengqin.
[See more: Duty-free allowances raised for mainland visitors in Macao and Hong Kong]
To promote the scheme, the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) produced a how-to video in Mandarin. The office has also been boosting awareness of the higher duty-free limit via posts on Chinese social media platforms such as WeChat, Weibo, Douyin and Xiao Hongshu.
Economically, the new threshold is expected to have a positive impact on Macao through encouraging tourists to spend more money. According to official data for the first quarter of this year, visitors spent almost half of their budget on shopping, with food products (13.1 percent), cosmetics and perfume (10 percent), jewellery and watches (7.1 percent) and handbags and shoes (6.9 percent) the most popular categories.
While the raised threshold comes as welcome news to businesses, some in the tourism and retail industry will be disappointed that it’s well below the 30,000 yuan limit they had lobbied for, the South China Morning Post reported.
