Shiliuyun-Xinjiang Daily (Reporters Guo Ling, Fan Qiongyan) news: At the end of August, 2023, the border shopping tour at the China-Kazakhstan Horgos International Border Cooperation Center showed a booming trend, with more than 20,000 people in and out every day.

For tourists, the duty-free stores here are the most attractive. On August 26, 2023, at the European Duty Free Mall within the cooperation center, tourists' shopping baskets were filled with perfumes, face masks and other cosmetics, and the staff was busy arranging and recommending the goods.

The aroma of coffee wafted out from the tea break area next to the shopping area. Hu Chunmei, wearing her hair up in a white shirt, held a cup in one hand and made latte art with the other. She smiled and invited people to taste her work.

Photo shows Hu Chunmei smiles and invites people to taste her coffee at China-Kazakhstan Horgos International Border Cooperation Center in Horgos, northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Photo by Shiliuyun-Xinjiang Daily/ Guo Ling) 

Hu Chunmei is the general manager of the European Duty Free Mall of Xinjiang Ouhuaxin International Trade Co., Ltd. As a native of Wenzhou City, east China's Zhejiang Province, her business in Horgos is now on the right track, with dedicated personnel responsible for every aspect. Her work also became easier; she sometimes makes a cup of coffee and sometimes wanders among the rows of displays like a tourist.

Hu Chunmei's family had been doing general merchandise business in Rome, Italy, and she also started a business when she became an adult.

In 2016, "buy on behalf" went viral, and there were many young people in the supermarket chain opened by Hu Chunmei's family in Italy who would spend the whole day recording videos, learning about products, etc., and they would purchase all kinds of goods on behalf of customers at home.

"At that time, every time I went back to China, I would bring my friends and relatives some products they liked but were not easy to buy at home." As she looked at the supermarket full of young people shopping on behalf of customers at home, Hu Chunmei began to think about going back to China and starting her own business with sources of goods and channels of sales to meet domestic market demand.

Hu Chunmei’s brother, who was doing business in Horgos back then, told her that there were many favorable policies for doing business in Horgos, and she came to inspect the actual situation.

China-Kazakhstan Horgos International Border Cooperation Center is the first cross-border economic and trade cooperation zone established between China and other countries, where border tours, cross-border tours, and shopping tours interested Hu Chunmei so much that she had the idea of coming from Rome to do business in Horgos.

“Genuine duty-free products can be sold at the cooperation center, we do not have to pay sales tax when importing goods from abroad, the goods entered into the cooperation center can be bonded at the comprehensive bonded zone under customs supervision. And the goods are picked up from the comprehensive bonded zone and then sold at the cooperation center. The amount of tax exemption is relatively large.” Hu Chunmei said.

Various kinds of preferential policies and the superior geographic location attracted Hu Chunmei to develop her business in Horgos. In 2017, the European Duty Free Mall she invested in officially opened, with a business area of 4,280 square meters.

Hu Chunmei delivers goods purchased from Italy, France, Spain and other countries centrally to the company's warehouse in Germany, and then sends them to Horgos.

"At first, we used air freight to deliver the goods, and the cost of 1 kilogram of freight was about twelve yuan. Although the cost of shipment by sea is low, it takes too long, especially very unsuitable for some food products, like chocolates, some of them were close to expiration by the time they arrived." Hu Chunmei said that later, with the opening of more and more China-Europe freight trains, she shipped the goods from the German warehouse to Horgos through the return trip of Yuxin'ou (Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe) China-Europe freight trains, which takes up to two weeks, and the cost of freight is also greatly reduced.

With the further promotion of the Belt and Road Initiative, Horgos’s opening up to the outside world has been strengthened. In order to make the product enter the domestic and international markets, Hu Chunmei has constantly enriched the product range.

The products she sold in the early days were mainly skin care products, shampoos and bath cream from Europe, but later she added candies from Russia, camel milk powder and pastries from Kazakhstan, and added local specialties according to tourists' needs, such as essential oils, pillows and face masks made from lavender.

Entering September, there are not as many tourists as in the previous period. "With more tourists in summer and relatively fewer in winter in Horgos, we will have more time to do online sales, and we are recently preparing to build an overseas warehouse to sell our products to foreign markets in the way of cross-border e-commerce," Hu Chunmei said.

There are many people who don't understand Hu Chunmei and often ask her, "Why did you choose to go back to China when all your family members are in Italy? She replied that she is very optimistic about the great opportunities brought by the Belt and Road Initiative, and she believes that she could make a great career here.

Now, Hu Chunmei plans to innovate the Internet sales model and establish a cross-border e-commerce platform relying on the China-Europe freight trains and an offline physical overseas warehouse exhibition and sales experience center. The experience center will adopt the "online + offline" sales model to send more “Manufactured in China” products to the world and to bring back high-quality products from the countries that jointly pursue the Belt and Road Initiative at the same time.

(A written permission shall be obtained for reprinting, excerpting, copying and mirroring of the contents published on this website. Unauthorized aforementioned act shall be deemed an infringement, of which the actor shall be held accountable under the law.)