Changes in Hong Kong stocks | China Exemption (01880) rose more than 3% at the end of the New Year's Day holiday, outlying islands duty-free welcomed a good start, and customs clearance policies effectively stimulated consumption potential

The Zhitong Finance App learned that the China Free Tax Service (01880) rose by more than 3% at the end of the session. As of press release, it had risen 2.42% to HK$78.45, with a turnover of HK$333 million.

According to the news, Guoyuan International Research Report pointed out that the 2026 New Year's Day holiday was the first long holiday after the customs closure of the entire island of Hainan Free Trade Port, and the tourism market had a “good start.” The province received 2.1716 million visitors, a year-on-year increase of 25.2% according to a comparable scale; total tourism revenue reached 3.136 billion yuan, an increase of 28.9% over the previous year. The revenue growth rate was 3.7 percentage points higher than the number of visitors, indicating that the consumption structure continues to be optimized. Outlying islands have shown outstanding performance in areas such as tax exemption and inbound tourism. The bank believes that the dividends of the customs closure policy and diversified product supply will jointly push the Hainan tourism market into a new stage of high-quality development.

UBS released a research report saying that according to Haikou Customs data, duty-free sales in Hainan increased 129% year-on-year to 712 million yuan from January 1 to 3, and the number of duty-free shoppers increased 61% year-on-year. The bank estimates that the per capita duty-free spending amount is 8,527 yuan, an increase of 42.5% year-on-year; the number of products purchased also increased by 52.4% year-on-year. All data beat market expectations. UBS believes that strong sales growth is mainly due to Hainan easing shopping policy restrictions for local residents and departing travelers at Hainan duty-free shops in October last year, boosting the number of shoppers.