HAIKOU -- The 5th China International Consumer Products Expo (CICPE) will be held in South China's island province of Hainan from April 13 to 18.

As China's only national-level exhibition focused on consumer goods, this year's edition emphasizes innovation and global collaboration.

One of the most noticeable highlights of the expo is its global participation and record scale. An estimated 71 countries and regions are set to participate, showcasing over 4,100 brands, including 65 Fortune Global 500 companies and industry leaders.

Slovakia will make its debut with a national pavilion, while Brazil's Sao Paulo State, along with several others, will launch regional pavilions for the first time.

Britain, this year's guest country of honor, will occupy over 1,300 square meters to display 53 brands spanning fashion, beauty, and home goods. Beijing, participating as a guest city for the first time, will feature a 400-square-meter themed exhibition zone.

Some exhibition zones spotlighting cutting-edge technologies and emerging trends are set to become another major highlight of the expo.

The tech innovation zone in Hall No 1 features artificial intelligence, smart homes, and low-altitude economy applications. Brands like Huawei, Tesla, and Unitree will demonstrate products such as their latest smartphones, humanoid robots, and AR glasses.

Live displays of low-altitude tech, such as Xpeng AeroHT's "flying car" and EHang's drones for cross-sea transport and tourism, will take center stage.

In the global lifestyle zone in Hall No 4, luxury watches, cosmetics, and premium foods will offer visitors an immersive cross-border shopping experience.

This year's CICPE will also offer visitors tech-driven experiences, with debut showcases of brain-computer interfaces, exoskeletons, and sleep assistance tech designed for elderly care.

Chinese provinces and municipalities will showcase their unique cultural heritage through innovative products. Meanwhile, international brands and Chinese time-honored names will unveil flagship products and heritage collections.

China's Ministry of Commerce, one of the organizers of the expo, will launch the "Shop in China" campaign, a nationwide initiative promoting shopping, dining, and tourism.

The eco-friendly theme of the expo will be prominently featured throughout the event. The mascots, "Yuanyuan" and "Xiaoxiao," inspired by Hainan gibbons, symbolize rainforest conservation. Expo branding seamlessly blends tropical elements with green concepts.

The "message-in-a-bottle" sculpture at Haikou's iconic Cloudscape library symbolizes global cultural exchange. Similarly, the 2025 CICPE aims to become Asia-Pacific's largest consumer goods expo, bridging global brands with China's market and highlighting Hainan's role as a key free trade hub.

China's duty-free shopping policies in Hainan province, offering travelers the convenience of instant pickups and guaranteed pickups, have achieved notable success two years after implementation, according to local customs data.

Duty-free shoppers in Hainan spent 6.94 billion yuan ($950 million) through the "buy and pick-up" duty-free method in Hainan's offshore duty-free from April 1, 2023, to March 31, 2025. During this period, 7.7 million items were purchased by 3.48 million individuals. Additionally, the "guaranteed pick-up" method saw a total shopping amount of 138 million yuan, with 1,314 items bought by 1,308 people, data from Haikou Customs showed.

The policies, designed to boost tourism and retail in the island province, have dovetailed with cultural events like concerts, drawing visitors such as a tourist surnamed Huang from Guangdong province. "I came for Jay Chou's concert in Sanya but forgot my sunglasses and sunscreen," she said. "Buying them duty-free and getting them right away was affordable and hassle-free."

Retailers like China Duty Free Group's Sanya branch have likewise leveraged these major events to drive sales, optimizing logistics to meet demand under the new rules.

To streamline the "guaranteed pick-up" method, Haikou Customs has set up verification checkpoints at airports and ports, using smart tracking systems to cut inspection times to as little as two minutes. "Once we confirm the goods are unused and the traveler has left the island, we refund the deposit promptly," said Yang Gang, deputy director of Haikou Customs' port supervision department.

Hainan plans to expand duty-free product categories and further refine the policies to enhance convenience for shoppers and sustain its appeal as a duty-free shopping hub, according to Haikou Customs.

The upcoming fifth China International Consumer Products Expo, to be held from April 13 to 18 in Haikou, Hainan province, is expected to attract the highest number of participants compared with past editions, which points to the confidence of global consumer enterprises in China, the Ministry of Commerce said.

The event, the largest consumer goods expo in the Asia-Pacific region, will become China's first significant international expo this year, and an important platform for the country to further boost consumption and expand high-quality development, said the ministry, the co-organizer of the expo.

In the recently delivered Government Work Report, boosting consumption was listed as a top priority among this year's tasks.

"This year, the expo is expected to attract the participation of more than 1,700 companies and over 4,100 brands from 71 countries and regions. This scale far exceeds the previous four editions," said Sheng Qiuping, vice-minister of commerce, at a news conference in Beijing on Thursday.

Hainan Free Trade Port is a pioneer in China's opening-up efforts. An FTP system focused on trade and investment liberalization as well as facilitation will be "basically established" in Hainan by 2025, according to the plan.

The holding of the consumer expo, coupled with the policies of the FTP, is expected to help drive the growth of duty-free shopping, catering, accommodation, and tourism consumption in Hainan, promoting its development into a globally influential tourism and consumption destination, the ministry said.

This year, the United Kingdom will serve as the guest of honor, and the UK, France, Switzerland and Slovakia will showcase their products in the form of national exhibition groups, according to the local government of Hainan.

In addition, different provinces and cities across the country will showcase popular domestic products and time-honored brands. In addition to the exhibition of products, services consumption — such as healthcare and wellness, sporting events and artificial intelligence — will also be highlights of the event this year.

"With the hosting of four editions of the consumer expo, international consumer enterprises have increasingly felt the charm of the Hainan FTP and felt that the door of China's reform and opening-up is opening increasingly wider," said Gu Gang, vice-governor of Hainan.

In the first two months, total retail sales of consumer goods in China reached 8.37 trillion yuan ($1.15 trillion), up 4 percent year-on-year, and the growth rate was 0.5 percentage point higher than the whole year figure of last year, the ministry said.

zhuwenqian@chinadaily.com.cn

BEIJING - The fifth China International Consumer Products Expo (CICPE), scheduled for April 13 to 18 in Haikou, capital of South China's Hainan province, will showcase the latest humanoid robots from leading domestic and international companies, the event's organizers announced on Thursday.

The expo, a key platform for global trade and consumption trends, has drawn the participation of over 4,100 brands from 71 countries and regions, Vice Commerce Minister Sheng Qiuping told a press conference.

Co-hosted by China's Ministry of Commerce and the Hainan provincial government, this year's expo will highlight emerging consumption trends, including artificial intelligence (AI) and low-altitude aviation, debuting innovations from global companies, Sheng said.

The event will introduce a dedicated consumption tech zone to display cutting-edge technologies and products, with humanoid robots being a bright spot at the expo.

Major tech innovators such as Huawei, Tesla, Unitree and Rokid will present their latest AI-integrated consumer products, ranging from humanoid robots to AR glasses.

The CICPE is China's only national-level exhibition featuring consumer products and is the largest consumer expo in the Asia-Pacific region.

China's consumption market will continue to show a stable development trend this year, fueled by the continuous efforts of various policies and measures to help expand domestic consumption, the Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday.

In the first two months of this year, total retail sales of consumer goods reached 8.37 trillion yuan ($1.15 trillion), up 4 percent year-on-year, and the growth rate was 0.5 percentage points higher than the whole year figure of last year, data from the ministry showed.

Over the same period, catering revenues grew by 4.3 percent year-on-year, and the growth rate was 1.6 percentage points higher than that of December.

"China's consumption market is resilient, with great potential and vitality, and the fundamental trend of recovery and improvement remains unchanged," said Li Gang, director-general of the department of market operation and consumption promotion of the Ministry of Commerce, during a news conference in Beijing.

Brick-and-mortar retail enterprises have been accelerating their digital transformation, innovating and enriching consumption scenes, and improving consumption experiences.

In January and February, among entities above the designated size, retail sales of warehouse member stores maintained double-digit growth. Retail sales of convenience stores, specialty stores and supermarkets climbed by 9.8 percent, 5.4 percent, and 4 percent on a yearly basis, respectively, the ministry said.

Service consumption has also continued to expand, and new types of consumption such as digital, green, and intelligent consumption are rapidly developing, providing strong support for the continuous recovery and improvement of the country's consumption market.

In January and February, total retail sales of services increased by 4.9 percent year-on-year, and online retail sales grew by 7.3 percent year-on-year, the Ministry of Commerce said.

Meanwhile, retail sales of new energy vehicles in the two-month period jumped by 35.5 percent year-on-year, and the penetration rate reached about 45 percent in the country, according to data from the China Automobile Dealers Association.

Editor's note: China recently issued a special action plan for boosting consumption, focusing on enhancing consumption capacity, releasing consumption willingness, optimizing consumption environments and unlocking consumption bottlenecks.

This comprehensive policy package introduces far-reaching measures to refine institutional mechanisms for consumption promotion, unlock new market potential, and accelerate China's shift toward a consumption-driven economic growth model.

Let's take a look at how the special action plan will facilitate consumption.

The plan aims to increase residents' income with a multi-pronged approach, focusing on:

-Promoting reasonable growth in wages.

-Expanding channels for property income.

-Implementing diverse measures to raise rural incomes.

-Resolving payment arrears to enhance consumption circulation.

Wang Jingwen, director of the Macro Research Center affiliated to the China Minsheng Bank Research Institute:

The capital market performance directly impacts residents' property income. Since September 2024, policy efforts to boost the capital market and stabilize stocks and real estate reflect the central authorities' prioritization. The special action plan builds on these strategies, promising healthier market development and improved consumption capacity.

Liu Shijin, former deputy director of the Development Research Center of the State Council:

Urban and rural pensions should be raised from 220 yuan ($30.41) per month to 400 yuan per month in one to two years, 600 yuan in three years, and 1,000 yuan in five years. The consumption potential exceeding 1 trillion yuan is expected to be unlocked, driving nearly 1 percentage point of annual GDP growth.

The plan aims to alleviate rigid expenditure pressure to release consumption willingness

The special action plan emphasizes the protection of flexible employees, rural migrant workers, and workers in new forms of employments, focusing on securing their rights in childbirth, childcare, education, healthcare, and elderly care as part of its consumption capacity support measures.

Key measures:

- Expand educational resources in population-inflow cities.

- Promote the abolition of the household registration restrictions for flexible employment workers to participate in basic old-age and medical insurance at the place of employment, and expand the trial of occupational injury protection.

-Ensure the basic livelihood of key groups and strengthen assistance for low-income people.

Lu Ming, distinguished professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Antai College of Economics and Management:

Populous cities face enormous demands for public services. Equalizing education and healthcare access for migrants will enhance the public well-being, ensure sustainable investment, and drive growth.

Establishing a unified national pension insurance system is urgent to realize barrier-free transfer and continuity of pension insurance relationship is an urgent need to protect the rights and interests of the migrating population and promote the rational flow of the labor force. This will not only help eliminate the worries of the migrating population's cross-regional employment but also improve the operational efficiency of the pension insurance system and promote the modernization of the social security system.

The plan aims to improve the quality of service consumption

The special action plan introduces an action to improve the service consumption quality, covering:

- Optimizing elderly care and childcare services.

- Promoting daily-life services, cultural, sports and tourism services, ice-and-snow related consumption.

- Expanding service industry openness.

Wang Chengfang, president of Anhui provincial domestic service industry promotion association:

The plan encourages the development of community-embedded care and employer-sponsored childcare-integrated services. These will bring real benefits for the elderly and children, and enterprises will also usher in policy support and increase cooperation opportunities with government departments and communities.

Moreover, Community-embedded elderly care allows domestic practitioners to expand their domestic services through service modes such as medical escort, daily care, and social interaction. It releases the demand of the silver-haired consumer market. At present, there is a large demand for market-oriented childcare, and community childcare can not only facilitate parents to send and pick up their children to and from schools but also enable community mothers to achieve employment at their doorstep.

Lu Ming, distinguished professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Antai College of Economics and Management:

People's pursuit of spiritual civilization is more reflected in the service industry, as evidenced by popular cultural consumption such as concerts and music festivals in recent years. At the same time, because of the immediacy of service consumption, it has a more sustained and stable pulling role in boosting consumption.

Pan Yuanyuan, an associate researcher at the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences:

Steadily expanding the opening-up of the service industry is conducive to meeting the differentiated needs of all levels in China. In the future, there needs to be more detailed rules to cooperate with the encouragement catalog. For example, "Internet + medical" involves patient data management, follow-up data storage, data flow and other issues that need to be further clarified.

The plan aims to better meet housing consumption needs and extend the automotive consumption chain

The plan proposes to carry out big-ticket consumption renewal and upgrading actions, including:

- Increasing support for consumer product trade-in program.

- Better meeting housing consumer demand.

- Extending the auto consumption chain.

Wu Jing, director of the Henglong Center for Real Estate, Tsinghua University:

This marks the first time that a State Council document on boosting consumption has specifically outlined concrete measures to support housing consumption. It highlights the mutually reinforcing relationship between fully unleashing the potential of housing consumption and boosting overall household consumption, representing an extension and breakthrough in the approach to stimulating consumption.

Li Yujia, chief researcher at the Guangdong Planning Institute's residential policy research center:

Housing consumption has a leading and driving role in the consumption of the whole society, which can drive the consumption of old consumer goods for new, household appliances and furniture decoration. In the special action to boost consumption, housing consumption is the most important part.

Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the China Passenger Car Association:

The policy will activate the new momentum of automobile consumption from three aspects: promoting market expansion, breaking down trading barriers, and building a digital regulatory system. The policy not only revitalizes the stock of automobile assets, but also creates incremental service demand, which is expected to promote the transformation of the automobile industry from manufacturing and sales to ecological services and promote the expansion and quality of the trillion yuan-level automobile consumer market.

The plan eyes on fiscal-financial synergy and more incremental policies are on the horizon

The plan put forward a series of fiscal and financial support policies and called for strengthening the synergy of pro-consumption policies. From the perspective of policy deployment, more incremental policies to promote consumption are already on the way.

Fiscal measures include:

-Increasing ultra-long special treasury bonds for trade-in programs from 150 billion yuan to 300 billion yuan.

-Expanding central budgetary investment in education, healthcare, and elderly care.

-Introducing two new loan interest discount policies for consumers and service providers.

Financial measures:

- Encourage financial institutions to increase the deployment of personal consumption loans.

- Develop new structural monetary tools.

Zhang Bin, deputy director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of World Economics and Politics:

The two policies of loan interest discounts for individual consumers and service providers have a leverage effect to boost consumption from both ends of supply and demand. The former drives demand for end products, while the latter will enhance the supply of public services.

Tian Lihui, head of the Institute of Finance and Development at Nankai University:

In product design for the plan to encourage financial institutions to increase the deployment of personal consumption loans, the establishment of a hierarchical credit system can be considered. For example, pilot "inbound consumer loans" for foreign tourists. In terms of process innovation, credit card virtualization can be explored, and payment can be completed by directly binding consumption scenarios through digital wallets.

Tourists visiting Sanya, Hainan province, can now receive a full refund for cancellations made at least seven days before check-in during non-statutory holidays, as outlined in new guidelines released by the Sanya Federation of Tourism Associations on Saturday.

These guidelines, titled "Guiding Opinions on Room Reservation and Cancellation in Sanya's Accommodation Industry (Trial)", establish rules for both accommodation providers and online booking platforms during statutory and non-statutory holiday periods. For statutory holidays such as Spring Festival and National Day, the cancellation period extends to at least 15 days before check-in.

Effective immediately, for a one-year trial period, the regulations apply to individual online bookings, cancellations and related services in Sanya, excluding group bookings, offline phone reservations and travel agency bookings.

Accommodation providers in the coastal city are mandated to implement quick refund systems, responding to cancellation requests within 2 hours and issuing refunds within the specified timeframe without deductions.

The guidelines also require online booking platforms to prominently display cancellation policies, including deadlines for free cancellations, incremental fee structures, and force majeure clauses. They are also tasked with strengthening merchant verification processes and addressing issues such as hotel name infringement and unclear refund terms like "partial refund" or "discretionary charges".

Additionally, the guidelines further include oversight mechanisms for addressing complaints against accommodation providers and online booking platforms, with supervisory authorities empowered to impose penalties or other measures.

Sanya is preparing to launch a "12345 Cancellation Hotline" for round-the-clock complaint reception and resolution within 48 hours, with the Sanya Trust Pay platform handling compensation requests.

Governor Liu Xiaoming of Hainan province, speaking during the ongoing two sessions on Friday, affirmed the province's commitment to promptly resolving tourist grievances through the Hainan Trust Pay platform, ensuring immediate redress and compensation.

Emphasizing the protection of consumer interests to uphold Hainan's tourism reputation, Liu vowed that there will be consequences for entities that tarnish the province's image. Liu's proactive approach to addressing tourist concerns has garnered attention online, underscoring Hainan's dedication to fair pricing and efficient complaint resolution channels to enhance the overall visitor experience.

HAIKOU - The fifth China International Consumer Products Expo (CICPE), a key platform for global trade and consumption trends, will take place in Haikou, the capital city of South China's Hainan province, from April 13 to 18, the event's organizers announced at a press briefing on Wednesday.

Co-hosted by China's Ministry of Commerce and the Hainan provincial government, this year's expo will feature expanded international participation and first-time innovations.

Aligning with China's innovation priorities, the expo will highlight sectors such as artificial intelligence, low-altitude aviation, smart vehicles and digital health.

Tech leaders like Huawei, iFLYTEK and Tesla will showcase cutting-edge solutions. The main venue remains the Hainan International Convention and Exhibition Center this year, with additional duty-free shopping zones in international duty-free complexes in Haikou and Sanya.

A yacht exhibition will also be held in Sanya. Newcomers to the event will include delegations from Slovakia, Brazil and Singapore. Multinational giants such as US-based Estée Lauder and Germany's Volkswagen will also be among this year's exhibitors.

Domestic exhibitors will present premium and local products, and a section of the expo will be dedicated to connecting foreign buyers with Chinese manufacturers through tailored investment matchmaking.

The CICPE is China's only national-level exhibition featuring consumer products, and it is the largest consumer expo in the Asia-Pacific region.

BEIJING -- From household appliance to auto manufacturing, a wide range of industries in China are gearing up for recovery. Policymakers have fleshed out details for a stimulus package to revitalize the super-large market.

In its latest bid to boost domestic demand, China's leadership has signaled its intention to expand consumer spending in a high-level meeting on Tuesday. The meeting underscored promoting the country's sweeping program of large-scale equipment upgrades and trade-ins of bulk durable consumer goods.

The renewed commitment came in the wake of a detailed plan announced last week to earmark approximately 300 billion yuan (about $42 billion) in ultra-long special treasury bonds to boost large-scale equipment renewals and replace old consumer goods with new ones.

To the surprise of some market analysts, the fund is tilted towards consumption and capital spending, as they had previously projected that the ultra-long special treasury bonds would traditionally flow into infrastructure, an established pillar of the national economy.

Above all, half of the fund was earmarked to support consumer goods trade-ins, which is roughly equivalent to 0.3 percent of the total retail sales of consumer goods registered last year. "This will give a vital boost for the consumer sentiment," said a UBS report.

The 300-billion-yuan bond incentive package marks a fresh round of the country's large-scale equipment upgrades and trade-ins of consumer goods program to spur domestic demand, following an action plan in March to initiate it -- nearly 15 years since the last such round of renewals.

Preliminary data painted a rosy picture of the program's tangible impacts on the real economy. During the first five months of this year, sales generated from home appliance replacements surged more than 80 percent from a year earlier on major e-commerce platforms, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.

Spending on the purchase of equipment and tools increased by 17.5 percent year-on-year during the same period, contributing more than 50 percent to the total investment growth in the country, the commission added.

Nevertheless, the positive outlook is tempered by the fact that China's consumer price growth remained moderate at 0.2 percent in June. The subdued inflation rate points to a warming consumer sentiment but also still-weak domestic demand.

Emphasizing the need to expand consumer demand with a focus on boosting consumption, Tuesday's meeting also hinted at a focus on economic policies that would improve people's livelihoods and expand channels to raise residential income.

Given the economic pressure coming from both domestic and global fronts, the meeting positioned consumption as a key leverage point to achieve the growth target, according to analysts. They take the meeting as a sign that China is taking a dual approach to target both enhancing income and increasing consumption to spur domestic demand.

The country's promise to bolster consumption is also echoed in a resolution released after the third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee, which was held from July 15 to 18.

The much-anticipated tone-setting plenum has underlined efforts to improve the income distribution system, the employment-first policy, and the social security system in bid to improve the people's well-being.

Furthermore, it has urged efforts to refine long-term mechanisms for expanding consumption, reducing relevant restrictions, and actively promoting the debut economy.

Looking ahead, the current priority of the economic work is to align fiscal policies with the expansion of consumer loans by banks and promotional discounts by merchants, in a bid to quickly generate a synergistic push for consumption power, noted Wang Qing, chief economist at Golden Credit Rating, a credit rating agency in China.

On the manufacturing sector, Wang expects the policy incentive supporting equipment upgrades will substantially drive investment into the sector, generating a stronger internal impetus for China's economy through enhanced industrial activities.