Hong Kong CDF Located at Its New Office and Committed to Overseas Market Expansion

On the afternoon of June 18, 2010, the elevator of the seventh floor of the East Ocean Center at Tsim Sha Tsui East, Kowloon, Hong Kong, was surrounded by dozens of flower baskets in order, which welcomed guests who came to express their congratulations in succession. The party in celebration of Hong Kong CDF’s location at the new office drew its curtain in a sea of congratulations. The liaison office of the central government in HKSAR, government office for special commissioners of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, CDFG president Lu Lu, vice-president Zhao Feng, and representatives from more than twenty suppliers, about sixty in total, attended the party.

When Hong Kong CDF was moved into the new office, it was also endued with the new mission. It has been decided after consideration that Hong Kong CDF would serve as a platform for investments abroad and expansion of overseas duty free markets and take charge of a series of work, including expansion of overseas investments, operation and management of overseas duty free retail terminals under the unified leadership and deployment of CDFG.

Upon approval of the National Tourism Administration, Hong Kong CDF was registered and founded in November, 1996, in Hong Kong, and currently, it is a wholly-owned subsidiary of CDFG in Hong Kong. In the overall duty free business flow of CDFG, Hong Kong CDF is a very important and indispensable connection. Over the years, Hong Kong CDF has been committed to assisting the headquarters of CDFG in deciding supply of goods, purchasing home-produced commodities and organizing storage, transportation and delivery for various duty free shops and conducting foreign settlement on behalf of CDFG.

Chen Jianshan, vice-president of CDFG and general manager of Hong Kong CDF, reviewed the development course of Hong Kong CDF in his speech of welcome. He said that in the past decade, under the leadership of CDFG and with support and coordination of numerous suppliers, Hong Kong CDF had actively served the delivery center and duty free shops under CDFG and that the quantity of commodities involved in its storage, transportation and delivery every year accounted for approx 80% of the total purchase quantity of CDFG. It could be said that the comprehensive arrangement of Hong Kong CDF in transportation and delivery of duty free commodities played an active role in saving transportation costs for suppliers and enhancing delivery rates of duty free commodities for various duty free shops.

CDFG president Lu Lu stated in his speech that to strengthen overseas expansion and speed up internationalization development was a significant task of CDFG for the time being and even for a relative long period of time in the future. Development of overseas business was an important part of the development strategy of CDFG and a long-term task of CDFG in the future. From the perspective of the requirements of either business development, or industrial development or State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, CDFG should go out.

From 2005 and after consideration of CDFG, CDFG required Hong Kong CDF to keep its traditional core business on the one hand and make full use of the advantages of Hong Kong in abundance of product information and suppliers and shift the work focus to expansion of overseas duty free markets.

Based on the strategy deployment of CDFG and with exploration and efforts of all staff, and support and assistance of overseas cooperative partners, Hong Kong CDF has started its expansion of overseas duty free markets and achieved some fundamental progress.

To date, Hong Kong CDF has worked with related cooperative partners to set up three ocean shipping supply duty free shops in Hong Kong, Gaoxiong and Jilong in Taiwan respectively, a passenger station duty free shop on Matsu Islands and an island passenger duty free shop in Taiwan. Its next step is to cooperate with countries and regions in Greater China and Southeast Asia to expand overseas duty free markets of CDFG.

Lu Lu pointed out that overseas duty free markets were a brand new world for CDFG and CDFG stood on the same starting line with all duty free operators. In face of the completely marketized and fully competitive environment, both success and failure were possible, and the new world presented many difficulties, high risks and great challenges. Currently, CDFG has integrated development of overseas business into its overall development strategies and started to carry out unified planning and deployment.

It is introduced that in order to accelerate expansion of overseas duty free markets, CDFG has set up overseas market expansion leading and work groups to be especially in charge of macro-administration of overseas market expansion as well as business arrangement and coordination. In future, purchase and supply of commodities for overseas duty free markets will be negotiated with suppliers by CDFG in a unified manner. Purchase and supply of commodities needed by overseas duty free retail terminals is also in the unified charge of CDFG, and order and supply will be implemented by Hong Kong CDF within the framework of the agreements between CDFG and its suppliers.

In the more than three decades’ development of CDFG, it has obtained full support of suppliers of world-famous duty free commodities, and both parties have established profound friendship in their long-term friendly cooperation. President Lu Lu expressed in his speech the wish that all supplier friends would continue to provide support and help for overseas market expansion of CDFG.