Recent measures by Beijing to curb overseas shopping by Chinese tourists could end up boosting imports into the country through regular channels. Chinese tourists have remained the highest spending group in the world for three years in a row, spending $US229 billion ($A317 billion) on overseas travel in 2015. Analysts at financial holding company Nomura have estimated nearly $US135 billion of this was spent on purchasing merchandise. Local Chinese ordered foreign goods worth another $US40 billion online. Australia has been a major beneficiary of this growth in overseas spending by Chinese tourists, with spending up 29 per cent in 2015 to $US3 billion. The country's retail sector has also been boosted by the tourists, who accounted for 1.4 per cent of total retail sales, up from 0.9 per cent two years earlier. Earlier this year, however, China tightened import rules and implemented tougher customs inspections as part of a crackdown on grey market online trade through warehouses based in free trade zones. It also rolled out new tax rules on e-commerce imports in April, sparking fears among Australian companies that a lucrative online window for Australian dairy and vitamin products would be closed. Nomura analysts believe this may not be a bad thing. "The mainland Chinese are unlikely to quit buying foreign products out of quality and safety concerns, but how they buy them could change on the margin," they said in a note on Tuesday. "One possibility is more foreign products will be bought onshore via the regular import channels, with pricing made more competitive as import duties are reduced gradually." The analysts also estimated that online prices would still remain more than 30 per cent cheaper than the offline offerings, encouraging digital shoppers to stick to the route.
Nomura has stated that pressure from the Chinese Government to restrict Chinese citizen 's overseas shopping could have the opposite effect and increase the number of imports via normal channels . For five consecutive years , Chinese citizens have been the biggest spending group in the world , spending $ 229bn on overseas travel in 2015 ; $ 135bn of which Nomura estimates was spent on foreign merchandise , and the local market also ordered $ 40bn worth of foreign products online . Even though the Chinese Government tightened rules on imports and introduced stricter customs inspections to crack down on online purchases , Nomura suggests that the Chinese demand for foreign goods will continue , due to health and safety concerns over domestic produce , it will just be served by regular imports .