Chapter 46 45. Yiwu: The Supermarket of the World

Yiwu's position as the world's supermarket was established in the 1990s and will continue as long as China maintains its status as the world's factory.This small city is located in the middle of the economically developed eastern province of Zhejiang, with a city area of ​​1,105 square kilometers and 6 towns and 7 streets under its jurisdiction. In 1982, Yiwu took the lead in opening up the small commodity market in China. Since then, it has been adhering to the strategy of "prospering businesses and building the city". With 58,000 booths, 43 industries, 1,900 categories, and more than 400,000 kinds of commodities, it has become the largest commodity wholesale market in the world.

"Yiwu city sells all kinds of things. For pilgrims who come to Zhejiang, it is the promised land - Yiwu's slogan is 'Ocean of goods, paradise for shoppers'. Yiwu is in the middle of our place, 100 miles (160 km) from the coast km), but buyers from all over the world flock to buy goods in bulk. There is a scarf section, a plastic bag section, and a main street where every store on both sides sells rubber bands. If your buttons are finished, you might as well go to Binwang Zipper Professional Strolling on the street. China Yiwu International Mall, a local shopping mall, has more than 30,000 stores—if you turn to each store for a minute, 8 hours a day, it will take two months to see it all. Yiwu attracts There are a large number of Arab businessmen, and 23 Arab restaurants have been built in one place next to it, as well as a Lebanese bakery. I ate at a shop called Arbeer, Kurdish style, and an Iraqi businessman. He Come here to buy jeans and electric lights," He Wei wrote in National Geographic. In 1996, 26-year-old He Wei came to Fuling, a small county near Chongqing, to work as an English teacher. Today, the American journalist who has published two books on China has become one of the best observers of details in China.

And when Jin Qi, the former head of the China station of the "Financial Times", came to Yiwu, he saw another scene: Yiwu, the hometown of small commodities in China, is full of imitations of various famous brand products in the world. You can buy the brand products you want at the lowest price.At the same time, notices against counterfeit and shoddy goods were posted on the streets of Yiwu, along with phone numbers.Only a Westerner like Kinch who is naive or wants to find out will call this number.He made the call and was told he had made the wrong number and should have dialed another one, no matter how much he argued.Okay, then dial a number, and the person who answered the phone told him that this matter is not under the control of the department, and told him another phone number.Finally, he wrote down several phone numbers, but did not answer any questions in his mind. Also full of humor, the last phone number returned to the number he dialed at the beginning. The person who answered the phone told him that he should dial This is the number he dialed initially to solve the counterfeiting problem he encountered.He not only saw what He Wei saw, but also tried to figure out what he saw but didn't understand with the naivety of a reporter who didn't understand, or he wanted to accuse China of protecting intellectual property rights.He wrote about this in his 2006 book, When China Shocked the World: The Rise of a Hungry Nation, which won the Goldman Sachs and Financial Times Business Book Awards.

No matter how you look at Yiwu, it must be admitted that the rise of this small mountainous city in central Zhejiang Province is a marvelous miracle.You can attack its lack of protection of intellectual property rights, but most people can't resist the cheap goods it has to offer.The teachings of Adam Smith are followed here, that free trade and markets are fundamental to prosperity.This city, 300 kilometers away from Shanghai, is the world's largest wholesale market for small commodities. A report in the "Los Angeles Times" described Yiwu International Trade City and said: "There are four floors, and 30,000 shops are densely distributed inside. It is the world's largest wholesale mall. Thousands of shopkeepers compete closely and sell Everything from household utensils, hairpins, hammers, statues of Buddha, Harley-like bikes and Egyptian water pipes, all at super low prices. Buyers come from all corners of the world, not only for small shops, but for Big retailers like Wal-Mart and Carrefour are looking for merchandise."

Like most cities in China, Yiwu also has its own legendary story from closed to open.It has also experienced the trials of fate that all Chinese counties have to experience. Political storms have also swept across this land, making its people tremble and uneasy. In 1980, the Yiwu County Administration for Industry and Commerce began issuing temporary licenses to its vendors for the first time.They are the most famous peddlers in Yiwu, and they are almost the first memory of Yiwu in China—the street peddlers who trade chicken feathers for sugar.Since the Song Dynasty, these salesmen have traveled all over China.They carried loads of various small commodities, shook the rattle with one hand, and exchanged their own small commodities for old second-hand commodities used by people.On these temporary licenses, the business column reads: Small department stores sell sugar in exchange for chicken feathers and other fertilizers; and the business area may be in Zhejiang, Jiangxi, or any corner of China.

Another turning point occurred in 1982, when a Yiwu woman who set up a small business on the street met face-to-face with the newly appointed secretary of the Yiwu County Party Committee and discussed why she wanted to start a small business. In 1982, Feng Aiqian was 42 years old.She sold 10 tans of millet for 80 yuan.Then she borrowed 300 yuan from the rural credit cooperatives, and then bought a salesman's bag for herself, and then she started to set up a street stall in Yiwu County.But this form of capitalism and "opportunistic" businessmen are suppressed by the government.Every time she gets caught, while she no longer faces jail time like she did 10, or even five years ago, all her goods will be confiscated.Until one day, she saw Xie Gaohua, the newly appointed secretary of the county party committee in Yiwu. Feng Aiqian, who was trapped by her livelihood, rushed up to complain about her grievances and predicament. Think about it."

Xie Gaohua said with a gloomy face, "You come with me!" "Let's go!" Feng Aiqian said. In Xie Gaohua's office, Feng Aiqian began to tell the top political leader of Yiwu County about the hard life of a salesman.In "Discovering Yiwu" published in 2007, author Huang Ping described their conversation: "We do a small business to support our family, why should the government drive us away?" "Setting up a stall on the street is not allowed by the policy!" "I don't have a job, and I don't have a farm. What do you want me to eat if I don't set up a stall? You officials should be aware of the people's conditions. The people's lives are so hard, and you always give us a bite to eat! I can't survive, I want to do business!"

At the end of the two-hour conversation, Xie Gaohua said to Feng Aiqian: "Don't cry, let's put it first!" Later, Yiwu people took this conversation as the beginning of Yiwu's opening of the small commodity market. On August 25, 1982, the Choucheng Town Market Rectification Leading Group of the Yiwu County Party Committee issued the "No. 1 Announcement", which stated that from September 5 of this year, Yiwu officially opened the county small commodity market. "It is said that it is just to open a road, but in fact, all the underground stalls have been put up. A stool and two wooden boards are placed from outside the city to the city, all the way to the gate of the county party committee. A little later in the morning, the car will leave. No. It is said that once a leader from the province came to Yiwu for an inspection, but he couldn’t get in any way, so he had to park his car outside the city and walked in on foot,” described in “Discovering Yiwu”.

This started the quintuple jump of Yiwu Small Commodity Market.The first-generation market was a small department store in Choucheng Town in 1982, selling pins, threads, buttons, and hair ropes, known as the "straw hat market".The second-generation market was opened on the new road, with cement floors and cement board stalls. Then, the market became bigger and bigger and more stylish. The third-generation market began to have tall buildings, and the fourth-generation market began to be established by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce. It is called "China Small Commodity City", and the fifth generation market is simply called "Yiwu International Trade City".

At the beginning, most of these stall owners were buying and selling, the so-called "buy across the country, sell across the country". Later, the huge shipments began to drive the development of the local manufacturing industry. small businessman.Among them is Lou Zhongping’s Shuangtong Daily Necessities Co., Ltd. At the beginning, the husband and wife rented two private houses, bought two machines, and made straws day and night in a small workshop. Now it is the largest drinking straw company in the world, producing all kinds of drinking straws. A quarter of the straws in the world export 8 tons of straws every day.There is also Tao Haidi's zipper production company "Weihai Zipper". Tao Haidi, who has been selling zippers at a stall before, is now the world's largest zipper manufacturer. If the zippers produced by "Weihai Zipper" are connected every year, they can circle the equator 200 times.There are also "Langsha" and "Mengna", which are famous for producing socks, and "Xinguang", which is famous for producing accessories. Langsha Socks also became a sponsor of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

There is not everything here, but almost everything, said a businessman who went to Yiwu to purchase.Today's Yiwu Small Commodity City has 58,000 booths and 25,000 industrial enterprises, providing more than 400,000 kinds of 500,000 kinds of commodities at the lowest price in the world, receiving 200,000 customers every day, and more than 1,000 containers from here Shipped to more than 200 countries and regions in the world. People found that the entire city of Yiwu is like a "huge market with infinite tolerance and tension": there are noisy socks crowded by more than 2,000 stalls with a width of 1 meter The market also has a spacious and bright international trade city consisting of more than 40,000 stalls equipped with broadband, and dozens of underwear streets, scarves streets, zipper streets, and luggage streets that seem to be constantly expanding. 50 square kilometers , a small town with a population of 680,000 has attracted more than 8,000 foreign residents of different colors; Many private hotels are equipped with computers connected to broadband, and you can watch CNN, BBC and international channels from the Middle East on the TV. In the city of Yiwu, almost everyone relies on the market for their livelihood, businessmen, business owners, Landlords, workers, and tricycle drivers are all around the market, and even the elderly in their 60s and 70s in remote rural areas can earn 10 to 20 yuan a day by folding scarves." Huang Ping wrote in "Discovering Yiwu" .