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"Yiwu, 300 kilometers away from Shanghai, is the
largest market of petty commodity wholesales in the
world where various foreign buyers go to place orders."
Such a depiction comes from Chinese Figures Astonishing
the World, a special report co-delivered by the United
Nations, the World Bank and Morgan Stanley. In that
special report, Yiwu is the only enlisted county economy.
And in the choice of "the 2004 Most Favorite Chinese
Cities of Domestic and Foreign Public in 2004",
Yiwu ranked the first among all county-level cities.
What's the reason that a county-level city located
in the middle of Zhejiang Province has attracted so
much attention of the public? It is a "world supermarket".
3,000 booths, 10 major exhibition halls, an exhibition
area of 70,000 square meters, 1,700 participating enterprises
from more than 20 foreign countries and 25 domestic
provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, 12,000
overseas merchants from 120 countries and regions… Such
are the latest records created by the 2005 Yiwu International
Commodities Fair (hereinafter abbreviated as Yiwu Fair).
Bo Xilai, China's Minister of Commerce, claimed after
his investigation in Yiwu that to study China's market
economy, it is a must to come to Yiwu; to study the
development of China's non-governmental economy, one
must go to Yiwu.
At present, there live 1.6 million people in Yiwu city;
but over a million people engaged in construction and
business from outside live there year in and year out.
Within this small city covering only 1,105 square kilometers,
there are 6,000 permanent foreign merchants from more
than 100 countries and regions in the world going there
to stock commodities and 566 representative offices
of overseas companies approved to be established there
in Yiwu.
Usually, an army of over 200,000 purchasers send out
commodities to 212 countries and regions at an average
scale of more than 1,000 international standard containers
there each day. In 2005, the trade volume of Yiwu exceeded
US$20 billion with its container exports breaking through
400,000 each day.
Without an advantaged geographical location as well
as abundant products, Yiwu's comprehensive development
level ranked the 17th among the top 100 counties and
cities and its urban competitiveness ranked the top
among all county-level cities in Zhejiang in 2004. Its
per capita GDP achieved US$5,000, its fiscal revenues
RMB2.95 billion, and the per capita net incomes of rural
residents there RMB6,969. More surprisingly, the possession
volume of cars is 26 per hundred households.
Yiwu has developed its unique advantages. The over
100,000 dealers and 200,000 coming-and-going merchants
in the market of petty commodities have constituted
a huge selling group and a huge buying group respectively.
Along with the sustained economic development of China,
petty made-in-China commodities have enjoyed their increasing
world competitiveness in the international market. Yiwu
has hold this point tightly that during over twenty
years, Yiwu has expanded its market of petty commodities
eight times, developing from the over 700 stands of
cement sheet along the streets in 1982 into the current
international trade city.
"Have petty commodities made in Yiwu" is
another slogan in the Yiwu market. In recent years,
there established two economic development zones at
the provincial level in Yiwu, which have fostered 25,000
industrial enterprises. Among the advantageous industries
such as knitting socks, clothes, ornaments, handicrafts,
toys, cosmetics, zippers and cultural and sport products,
quite a few have taken up over one third of the domestic
market shares, some representing 60 percent or even
higher. Moreover, these industries enjoy their advanced
equipments and technologies, thus occupying the international
high-end market and boasting a relatively strong international
competitiveness.
At present, Yiwu has boasted three state-level industrial
bases, namely China Zipper Industrial Base, China Writing
Instrument Industrial & Trade Base and China Cosmetic
Industrial Base. Nowadays, products "made in Yiwu"
have dispersed around every corner of China.
And also, international producing enterprises and suppliers
of petty commodities have poured into Yiwu. Among the
500,000 varieties of UN's statistical commodities, 300,000
are available here in Yiwu. In August 2005, UN had its
first Purchasing (Information) Center in the Asian-Pacific
region set up in Yiwu, which has then joined in the
UN purchasing network and become an important materials
purchasing base and price data collecting center for
UN.
The construction of Yiwu International Trade City has
absorbed the designing conception of large international
business center. It's equipped with the central air-conditioning,
elevated stereo transport network and wide band information
network, realizing the standard property management
of a three-star hotel. The trade city is also equipped
with a special e-commerce system that offers a wide
band access to each booth; over 40 percent of the dealers
conduct their e-commerce and network television is also
available; the website of China Petty Commodity Digital
City invested over RMB10 million by the market developer
designs web pages for all dealers for free, placing
more than 50,000 booths onto the internet with the click
rate exceeding 100,000 per day. The website is the largest
in the world as far as the volumes of global members
and commodities information are concerned, forming a
new pattern of the co-development of both material and
immaterial markets.
In recent years, there have planned and constructed
foreign-oriented institutions such as customs, foreign
exchange management and foreign business services center
successively in Yiwu. At present, the city boasts 18
financial institutions and 286 financial net points;
furthermore, the network payment system has been put
into use successfully, thus building up primarily such
systems as net shop, net purchase and net promotion.
Yiwu possesses five professional freight markets and
opens freight business with over 250 big and middle
cities and major international ports around the world.
It has five parcel railway expresses and over 20 airlines
as well as more than 600 companies engaged in domestic
and overseas freight transportation. Eight out of the
top 20 global shipping companies have set up their offices
in Yiwu. Yiwu customs, established in 2002, provides
a full coverage of services from commodity inspection
to customs declaration, and it's one of the largest
inland customs in China. The international logistic
center has been cooperating with the Ningbo Port and
Shanghai Port, thus realizing one-station customs clearance
and shortening the circulating cycle of foreign trade
goods greatly. By now, its function as an "inland
port" has been starting to shape up.
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