An exit duty-free shop covering an area of 252 square meters is set to open in Ningbo Lishe International Airport. [Photo/cnnb..com.cn]

An exit duty-free shop covering an area of 252 square meters is set to open in Ningbo Lishe International Airport, according to a notice released by Zhejiang Provincial Airport Group.

Situated in Terminal 2 of the airport, the duty-free shop for outbound tourists will be the first duty-free shop in the city, which is expected to be put into operation within a year.

The shop's opening is expected to bolster the city's efforts to construct itself into an international consumption city, according to an action plan unveiled by the local government in October last year.

Official data shows that there were 1.6 million inbound and outbound tourists in Ningbo in 2019, a record high. At the end of last year, Ningbo Lishe International Airport's Terminal 2 was put into use. With an area 2.5 times larger than Terminal 1, it is expected to attract more passengers from surrounding cities like Shaoxing, Zhoushan, and Taizhou.

In addition to the duty-free shop, consumers from Ningbo will also be able to purchase some quality imported commodities at lower prices via cross-border e-commerce platforms.

Ningbo is among the first batch of pilot areas in the nation for cross-border e-commerce. 

In the first half of the year, a total of 57.19 million bonded import declarations for cross-border e-commerce purchases were made in the city, with a combined value of 12.29 billion yuan ($1.78 billion), accounting for 25.7 percent and 26.5 percent of the national's total respectively.