However, these have been frustrated by difficulties finding a bank to provide a financial bond.
Guernsey Customs is now looking at a solution that will avoid the need for this guarantee.
Duty-free goods were previously sold at Alderney Airport by an outlet operated by Randalls. This ceased in 2020 and today there is no duty-free outlet.
But it may now be possible for this service to return, the island’s Economic Development Committee chairman told the States earlier this year.
There was political support for the idea, commercial interest and no practical reason for it not to proceed, bar bureaucracy, Stuart Clark said.
‘We have therefore arrived at the familiar administrative paradox – an economically beneficial activity is supported in principle, welcomed by operators and desired by the public, but may nevertheless be prevented because a regulatory requirement has been devised which cannot readily be satisfied in practice.’
The committee had contacted Home Affairs in Guernsey to ask for more information about the size of the bond being requested, including how it was calculated and what risk it was intended to cover, and asked if there could be an alternative arrangement agreed.
Mr Clark hoped it would not be a complicated matter.
‘The purpose of regulation ought to be to manage genuine risk, not to construct an obstacle course so elaborate that perfectly legitimate businesses are unable to reach the starting line,’ he said.
‘Yet too often bureaucracy appears to regard the prevention of activity as evidence of successful regulation. From an economic-development perspective, that is precisely the mentality we need to challenge.’
The need for a financial guarantee to operate a duty-free outlet is an internationally recognised customs practice, said Guernsey Customs & Immigration Service assistant chief officer Emma Webb.
‘It is a long-standing safeguard used to protect public revenues where excise duty is suspended on goods held for duty-free sale.
‘The level of guarantee is based on the estimated duty liability of the stock to be held and, in this case, the figure was provided by the business as part of its application.’
Customs and Excise had engaged with the applicant for some time, she said, and was ‘currently exploring an alternative solution that could enable duty-free sales without the need for an approved warehouse or financial guarantee.
‘We are open to finding a practical and proportionate way forward and will continue to work with all parties involved.’