CHINA. Leading travel retailers Zhuhai Duty Free Group and Avolta have struck an agreement to develop a duty paid retail-plus complex at the ambitious Sanya Bay One project in Hainan.
The signing ceremony was graced by senior executives of both partners and by Yin Chengling, Vice Mayor of Sanya Municipal People’s Government, and Zheng Conghui, Director of the Sanya Municipal Bureau of Commerce.
Zhuhai Duty Free parent Gree Real Estate said it has closely monitored the development of Hainan retail since 2020. It has taken the Sanya Bay One project as an opportunity to invest in the construction of an “international tourism consumption centre”, the company noted.
Sanya Bay One is a key project in Hainan Province. It is described as an extremely rare high-end waterfront commercial complex in the Sunshine Coast area. The building covers more than 160,000sq m.
Zhuhai Duty Free and Gree Real Estate have partnered with Avolta to jointly develop Sanya Bay One, with the goal of providing a premium location at which leading global brands will be represented. The partners have pledged to help grow Hainan tourism, to improve the destination for visitors and to stimulate new business.
In her speech at the signing ceremony, Vice Mayor Yin Chengling said, “The construction of a Free Trade Port with Chinese characteristics in Hainan is a major national strategy that General Secretary Xi Jinping has personally planned, deployed and promoted.
“Since the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council released the Overall Scheme for the Construction of Hainan Free Trade Port on 1 June 2020, the construction of Hainan Free Trade Port has entered a comprehensive implementation stage.
“We are very pleased to see that Avolta Group, as a world-leading travel retailer, and Zhuhai Duty Free Group, as the representative of excellent domestic duty free operators and the leading enterprise in the port duty free sector in the southeast region, are cooperating in the core region of Phoenix Coast in the Sanya Central Business District,” Yin added.
“Together they will empower the Sanya Bay One project to stimulate a new vitality of consumption in Sanya Bay.”
Yin said she hoped that Avolta Group and Zhuhai Duty Free Group would grasp the historical opportunity presented by the Hainan Free Trade Port completion, joining hands to become a model of win-win cooperation between domestic and foreign excellent enterprises in line with the official dual circulation policy.
The partners said they would continue to raise their level of cooperation, leveraging their joint resources, “contributing to the construction of Sanya as a world-class coastal tourism city and a world-renowned free port with Chinese characteristics”. ✈
