Crowned as “a sea of commodities and a paradise for shoppers”, Yiwu of china boasts an aggregate market floor area of 2.6 million square meters with 53,000 booths and 160,000 persons engaging in business. The market gathers 320,000 varieties of goods of 1,502 categories from 34 trades (notes: there are 500,000 varieties of goods in the world as released by the UN). From 1991, its market turnover has ranked the first among all the large special markets throughout the country for 13 years running. In 2003, the total turnover of Commodities City was 24.83 billion Yuan, which is an 8.4% and 8% increase compared with the previous years respectively. China Commodities City is also the only market awarded the honorary title of “emphasizing quality, keeping faith” by the State Bureau of Quality Supervision and State Administration of Inspection and Quarantine, as well as the only five-star market in Zhejiang province assessed by Zhejinag Administration for Industry and Commerce.

    With the ever-increasing economic internationalization of the Yiwu market, Yiwu has been a converging place of more that 4,000 distributing centers and general agents of famous enterprises from home and abroad, including enterprises and merchants from more than 40 countries such as USA, Japan, Australia, Korea, etc.. There are also more than 220 foreign business institutions in Yiwu with are more than 5,000 permanent foreign businesspeople. There are over 800 TEUs of goods exported to more than 188 countries and regions everyday. Exports to Southeast Asia, the Middle East and the Occident are prominent, which accounts for no less than 50% of the annual total turnover. Among its exports, products from dominant trades represent over 70% of all trades’ aggregate. More than 60% of booths in the market have supplied goods for foreign customers. According to statistics released by the People’s Bank of China, more than 6,290 foreign enterprises and businesspeople have opened their accounts with banks in Yiwu.

    China Yiwu International Trade City is a modernized wholesale market constructed with ingenious design in catering to the needs of the international development of markets by the China Commodities City (Group) Corporation. It is the key and symbolic project in the drive of building Yiwu into an international trade city. The first stage of this project, which has been completed and put into use, covers an area of 420 acres with total investment of 0.68 billion Yuan. On its 340,000 square meters of floor area are five functional districts including the main market, enterprise distributing center, goods purchasing center, warehouse center and catering center. There are more than 7,000 booths in this market with over 10,000 operators. The market deals in arts and crafts, ornaments, toys and flowers with daily turnover exceeding 50 million Yuan. Over 40,000 businesspeople visit this market each day. Export represents more than 60% of its total turnover with goods sold to more than 140 countries and regions. Over 90% of the booths in this market undertake foreign trade business.

    Construction of the second stage of this project, which was revealed in October 2003, boasts the new landmark in the course of development of the Yiwu market. With a total investment of 3 billion Yuan, this project is designed to hold 12,000 standard booths within its floor area of 890,000 square meters. The second stage of China Yiwu International Trade City opened on October, 2004, and it integrated with the first stage market and became a huge market with total floor space of 1.2 million square meters and 23,000 booths. Now, the largest commodities market in the world has been established in Yiwu.