By APD writer Alice

Yiwu, a city located at the heart of China’s Zhejiang province, is described as a potential market for Vietnamese agricultural products thanks to its favorable import policy.

It is the largest trading centre of small dealers in China and has been recognized by the World Bank as the world’s biggest wholesale market. Here there is a market area stretching 7 kilometers with dozens of thousands of stores showcasing goods of all kinds.

These conditions offer a good chance for Vietnamese exporters to boost shipments to this market. Major Vietnamese exports to Yiwu are fruits, food and agricultural products.

Nguyen Thi Nga, a small Vietnamese trader who has sold fresh fruits to Yiwu since 2015, said that she enjoys favourable conditions while shipping her products to the market.

As the city shifts to the policy of increasing imports from other countries and regions, especially neighbouring Vietnam, it has provided the best it can for foreign merchants, especially in terms of customs procedures, she said.

In addition to the general import policies of China, Yiwu has also applied its own policies to facilitate imports from overseas partners, she added.

Nga also highlighted an open trading mechanism in which both exporter and importer can bargain for their deals.

“The Yiwu partners are always straightforward, polite and friendly. In addition, they especially respect women,” she stressed.

Besides the above-mentioned advantages, the Vietnamese trader noted some difficulties facing her when exporting to the Chinese city, particularly in goods transport due to far distance.

She said some local partners were very demanding. Sometimes, they used as a pretext poor goods quality to lower prices.

“If Vietnamese dealers can tap all conditions available in Yiwu, it is sure that they will succeed in this market,” he said, adding that more and more merchants from Vietnam are interested in the city.

In addition to exporting fresh fruits to Yiwu, Nga also imports many products from this city, including clothes and dried fruits.

Forty years ago, Yiwu was a small agricultural county in the middle of Zhejiang province. Nowadays, the county-level city has become the world's largest wholesale market for daily commodities. In 2017, Yiwu's small commodity market ranked first among professional markets across China for 26 consecutive years, with a market area of more than 6.4 million square meters, 75,000 business stores, and more than 1.8 million products sold to 210 countries and regions around the world.

According to statistics, about 15,000 overseas merchants from more than 100 countries and regions are stationed in Yiwu.

Every day, hundreds of thousands of wholesalers come to the city to buy goods. Yiwu is famous for small commodities such as jewelry, decorative items, household goods, stationery, and small electronics equipment. These objects are commonly known under the term ‘exotic knick-knacks’.

Located about 280 km southwest of Shanghai, Yiwu is considered a key city linking “China’s varied local economies to regional and global markets”.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)