TWO free-trade shopping malls will be opened in Qianhai, providing Shenzhen residents with imported commodities at reasonable prices, Shenzhen Evening News reported yesterday.

    The Shenzhen Municipal Committee of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference held an open discussion at Book City’s CBD store in Futian District on Sunday afternoon, explaining international fair trade rules to visitors to promote the new Silk Road initiative.

    He Zijun, the deputy head of the management committee of the Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone, part of the Guangdong Free Trade Zone, said two free-trade shopping malls will open in Qianhai.

    He added that the Merchants Free Trade Mall, occupying an area of 10,000 square meters with five floors, will open by October and sell imported products.

    “The other one is the Hong Kong Trading Center with an area of 20,000 square meters, where residents can buy imported goods with Hong Kong services and management,” He said.

    There are four imported goods retail stores in Qianhai, running under various business models such as cross-border e-commerce, bonded transaction and online-to-offline modes, which are meant to meet consumers demand for imported commodities such as milk powder and cosmetics, He added.

    The new shopping malls will hopefully ease tension between mainlanders, especially Shenzhen residents, and Hongkongers by diverting many Shenzhen shoppers who used to spend in Hong Kong back to Shenzhen.

    The Hong Kong people have been frustrated in recent years with overcrowded public transport and inflated living costs due to the large number of mainlanders visited the SAR for shopping for things, from baby formula to OTC drugs.

    The Guangdong authority earlier this year had to stop issuing the Hong Kong travel permits for Shenzhen residents with unlimited entries annually to crack down on parallel trading.

    (Zhang Yang)