Hainan's island-wide customs operations boost tropical fruit industry global expansion

The launch of island-wide special customs operations on Dec 18 in Hainan province has created opportunities for tropical agriculture, as an industry alliance seeks to leverage the province's policy advantages to expand global markets.

The Tropical Fruit Industry Cooperation Alliance was established on Tuesday at the Window of World Tropical Fruits in Qionghai. Eight representatives from industry, academia, and research signed the initiative, which aims to link production with sales and expand into markets in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the United States.

The alliance plans to leverage Hainan Free Trade Port's policy advantages, such as zero tariffs, to reduce agricultural costs and expand processing value-added capacity. It also aims to promote agricultural-tourism integration by transforming traditional cultivation into an integrated industry combining production, lifestyle, and ecology.

The alliance was formed during the 2026 Tropical Fruit Industry Development Conference, held Monday through Thursday, a parallel session of the ongoing Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference.

At the conference's exhibition area, Fu Bo, deputy general manager of Guangxi Qinguo Agricultural, said the company's fruits are exported to Australia, Canada, the United States, and the Middle East. He noted that Hainan's tropical climate and cultivation techniques yield significantly higher yields than in other regions.

Slovak Ambassador to China Milan Lajciak said relations between Slovakia and China are strong and expressed interest in turning strategic partnerships into concrete programs.

"Hainan is very well known in Europe, and we expect that Slovakia can do a lot of business with this beautiful island," he said. "In Europe, we don't grow tropical fruits, but we are very strong consumers of tropical fruits."

Dai Jun, director of the Qionghai Tropical Crop Service Center, said the Hainan FTP has brought unprecedented opportunities to Qionghai's tropical fruit industry, particularly through expanded access to seedling customs facilitation measures and tariff exemptions for value-added processing.

Dai said Qionghai has introduced over a hundred exotic fruit varieties through the Window of World Tropical Fruits. He said the city plans to strengthen technological empowerment by deepening cooperation with research institutions and accelerating the construction of a tropical fruit germplasm resource bank.

He noted that Qionghai has adopted several models to increase incomes, including a mechanism combining companies, cooperatives, and farmers in which leading enterprises provide seedlings and technical guidance, cooperatives organize large-scale planting, and enterprises guarantee purchases, reducing risks for farmers growing exotic fruits.