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Find it in Yiwu

By China Daily (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-06-30 15:36

The main markets offer more than 400,000 items classified under 1,700 categories, from arts and crafts, candles, gardening equipment, umbrellas, to watches, toys, and jewelry.

Yiwu is also a paradise for traders from all over the world, with up to 200,000 visitors per day on average and 6,000 foreign residents.

Tens of thousands of traders and businessmen from all over the world crowd in Yiwu every day to look for cheap products to sell in their home markets, transforming this small city into a prosperous trading center.

Palestinian businessman Hazem Shyoukhi, 30, was one of the first foreigners to source cheap products in Yiwu eight years ago. Back then, the city was just beginning to position itself as a hub for trading small commodities in the country.

"In 2000, there were not many foreigners here. Yiwu was a small city with grubby roads. Now it is a big and clean city with lots of foreigners because of business here," Shyoukhi says.

Manufacturing

While Yiwu was enjoying the fame as the world's top supermarket, some people also started to look at its industrial development.

In 1995, the Yiwu government started encouraging vendors to run factories.

Zhou Xiaoguang, a billionaire who owns the world's largest accessories manufacturing base called Neoglory China Holding Group in Yiwu was one of them.

"The local government picked up several vendors who had good business performance at that time, and encouraged them to set up their own factories. I was one of them," says Zhou. Back then, Zhou and her husband had bought a booth at Yiwu's Small Commodity City.

Her husband was in charge of purchasing materials, while she and her sisters manned the booth in the day and processed accessories at night.

"We worked day and night at that time. Everyone in the big family was like a robot charged with full batteries," says Zhou. "By then, we earned several million yuan. It took risks to invest in opening an accessories factory. But the government's help in guiding procedures for opening a factory prompted us to respond to the call."

"I personally went to local farmers' houses many times to persuade them to set up factories because they didn't want to take the risk," recalls Jia Guinan, director of Yiwu Economic Development Bureau.

"Most of them were very satisfied with their current conditions. Doing business at booths could offer them a handsome profit. So I enticed them with tax-free schemes in the beginning."

Now there are 25,000 manufacturers representing 20 industries. More than 50 percent of zipper and 70 percent of jewelry production in China comes from Yiwu and 40 percent of the electric clocks in the world are also from the area.

Nearly 95 percent of the entrepreneurs in Yiwu are ex-vendors, according to International Business Daily. They traded in the commodities market and shifted to manufacturing.

However, because Yiwu started the manufacturing business late in the game, the county found it was at a disadvantage.

And the recent tightened macroeconomic policies have made it more difficult for enterprises to find land.

Jia says Yiwu now courts hi-tech enterprises. But a lack of professional talents is thwarting the take-off of the local hi-tech industry.

"So I insist that Yiwu's future still rests on the small commodities market," says He Peisong, senior counselor of Yiwu Commodities City Group.

"Coming into Yiwu small commodities market is like attending the China Import and Export Fair - Canton fair. You can attend the "Canton Fair" everyday here. Yiwu should become a window and base for small and medium-sized enterprises. SME setting up a booth in Yiwu means it has an access to both domestic and global markets."

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