‘We are just earning a living’: parallel trading on the rise in Hong Kong border town as trend makes comeback post-Covid curbs
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Shenzhen resident Charlene Yang runs an online retail business, but also earns extra cash on the side by being a parallel trader – crossing the border into Hong Kong and hauling home a stash of goods, mainly cosmetics, to be sold tax-free for profit.
The 30-year-old live streamer on Douyin, one of the most popular social platforms in mainland China, spent about HK$20,000 (US$2,550) on perfume and luxury skincare items, including La Mer moisturiser and an Aesop body cleanser, at a pharmacy in Hong Kong’s Sheung Shui on her latest trip.
“These items are popular among my customers whenever I host live shows on Douyin. Now that the Hong Kong-mainland border has reopened, I can just simply come to Sheung Shui and restock my inventory,” Yang said.
She is part of a returning trend, unpopular with locals, outside Sheung Shui MTR station in the Hong Kong border town since all pandemic-related travel restrictions between the city and the mainland were cancelled earlier this month.
Parallel traders buy stock in Hong Kong and then resell it on the other side of the border at a profit to evade hefty mainland import and value-added taxes.
Fuelled by higher taxes on consumer products across the border and confidence in the quality of Hong Kong goods, parallel trading in Sheung Shui was rife for decades before the pandemic and the 2019 anti-government protests hit the city.
