Recently, amid high global economic pressure and a large number of domestic orders moving overseas, good news has come from Yiwu, Zhejiang, an important domestic foreign trade cluster market.
Yiwu Christmas market is booming
The peak period of rush orders and export shipments is once again ushered in
Christmas supplies companies in Yiwu City, Zhejiang Province once again ushered in the peak period of rush orders and export shipments.
Yiwu is the main production and sales place in the global Christmas supplies market, accounting for more than 70% of the market. Its products are exported to Europe, the United States, Japan and other countries and regions. According to merchants, March to November every year is the peak season for Christmas supplies production and foreign trade exports. After the production of goods is completed in June and July, merchants will choose different transportation methods according to user needs to deliver Christmas supplies to all parts of the world. Most of the goods will be transported via the “Yixin-Europe” China-Europe freight train and can reach European customers within fifteen days. The Christmas supplies area in District 1 of Yiwu International Trade City brings together nearly 500 Christmas supplies merchants. 80% of the world’s Christmas supplies come from here. The purchasers are mainly from Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Spain and other countries. At present, most foreign merchants have chosen online ordering methods such as video communication and live ordering. In addition to Christmas supplies, it performed well at the Zhejiang Yiwu Multi-Dimensional Department Store Exhibition and Cups, Pots and Tableware Theme Exhibition at the end of last month. The exhibition achieved a good result of “a turnover of 587 million yuan and a traffic of 32,069 people.” An exhibitor from Taizhou, Zhejiang Province said: “Through these two days of exhibitions, I received nearly 20 offline orders, with a maximum of 3,000 cups per order, and some people want to buy samples.”
The epidemic is back
Sales and shipments in important foreign trade markets are blocked
But unfortunately, the epidemic that finally subsided seems to have made a comeback in Yiwu!
“Many of our e-commerce customers have stopped sales and shipments, which has a huge impact.” On August 4, Li Ting, the person in charge of a small, medium and micro enterprise in Yiwu, told reporters that the recent epidemic has affected the normal work of some employees on the one hand. , on the other hand, it also makes all production, delivery and sales less normal.
Against the backdrop of the global epidemic, more and more companies in Yiwu are accelerating their transformation into e-commerce, which has also given rise to the rapid development of the local e-commerce industry.
Li Ting said that their current customers are mainly e-commerce customers, and half of the e-commerce customers are in Yiwu. Yiwu has now stopped shipping in large areas. Amid the uncertainty, many e-commerce customers have suspended sales and shipments. . At the same time, parts suppliers also reported that they were unable to deliver as planned, which “is basically at a standstill for our company and has caused heavy losses.”
The person in charge of another small, medium and micro enterprise in Yiwu said that if the goods cannot be picked up or delivered in some places, it will definitely have an impact. “For example, some of our goods need to be delivered in whole batches, but if part of them cannot be picked up, it will have an impact.” Shipment of the entire shipment.” In addition, the number of people in the Yiwu market, which was originally restored, has inevitably decreased in the past two days.
On August 4, Yiwu issued an announcement on its official Weibo account on strengthening social control during the epidemic prevention and control period. The notice stated that people from outside the city are encouraged not to come to Yiyi unless necessary, and people in the city are not to leave Yiyi unless necessary. Those who really need to leave Yiyi must present a green health code and a negative 24-hour nucleic acid test certificate. In order to smoothly implement nucleic acid testing for all employees, those entering shopping malls, supermarkets, pharmacies, medical institutions and catering establishments must strictly implement the “one scan and three checks” (scan the venue code, check the health code, check the itinerary card, and check the negative certificate of the 48-hour nucleic acid test). ). At the same time, closed places across the city have suspended operations.
According to Yiwu’s announcement, from 21:00 on August 3 to 9:00 on August 4, 32 new cases of people who were initially screened positive in Yiwu City were found to be positive after review. Since the outbreak of the “8.2” epidemic, Yiwu City has reported a total of 70 local positive cases of COVID-19, including 9 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 61 asymptomatic cases of COVID-19.
The person in charge of a freight forwarding company in Yiwu told reporters that since the company is not in the core area of the outbreak, the impact will not be significant for the time being. It is still in the normal state of receiving goods and loading containers. It depends on whether the epidemic can be controlled as soon as possible.
On August 3, Wang Hao, Governor of Zhejiang Province and leader of the Provincial Leading Group for Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Epidemic Prevention and Control, inspected and guided the epidemic prevention and control work in Yiwu City, and hosted a video and telephone conference on the province’s epidemic prevention and control dispatch. He emphasized that this epidemic prevention and control encounter must be won as quickly as possible, on the smallest scale, and at the lowest cost; it is necessary to efficiently coordinate epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development, ensure “control and liberalization”, and achieve “production Non-stop, no reduction in production capacity, continuous logistics, and no chaos.”
Epidemic breaks out in the “Small Commodity Capital of the World”
Will it affect the recovery of foreign trade?
As the “Small Commodity Capital of the World”, Yiwu’s foreign trade recovery has attracted much attention.
Although affected by the domestic epidemic from March to May, Yiwu’s foreign trade performance in the first half of the year exceeded expectations, showing resilience under the epidemic. With the recent implementation of a series of “order grabbing” actions and “stabilizing foreign trade” policies, “8.2” Before the outbreak, local foreign trade was recovering well.
Data show that in the first half of this year, Yiwu City’s total foreign trade import and export value exceeded the 200 billion mark, reaching 222.25 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 32.8%. Among them, exports were 202.95 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 28.3%, and the growth rate was 8.0 percentage points higher than that of Zhejiang Province. The export value accounted for 12.2% of Zhejiang Province’s share, an increase of 0.8 percentage points from the same period last year.
The growth rate of Yiwu’s foreign trade exceeds that of Zhejiang, and the growth rate of Zhejiang’s foreign trade is higher than that of the whole country. The contribution rate of exports to the growth of the country ranks first. The growth rate of imports, exports, and imports both ranks first among the major coastal provinces and cities.
On July 30, Yiwu innovatively launched the country’s first charter flight for overseas merchants this year – the first batch of 163 overseas buyers from Pakistan planned to go straight to Yiwu Small Commodity Market after health control measures were implemented.
As an important window and platform for small, medium and micro enterprises nationwide to explore the international market, Yiwu Small Commodity Market is one of the most concentrated purchasing bases for foreign merchants. Before the epidemic, more than 560,000 foreign businessmen visited Yiwu for purchasing every year. Against the background of weak global economic recovery and the impact of the epidemic, the Yiwu market is also facing the practical challenge of reduced orders from old customers and the inability of new customers to come in. This makes their need to attract foreign businessmen back to Yiwu more and more urgent for purchasing. .
Overseas buyers who are currently under health control may have their purchasing plans to enter the Yiwu Commodity Market affected. However, since it is more convenient for foreign businessmen to return home, their stay time in Yiwu is also relatively flexible. According to the plan, Yiwu will continue to promote business charter flights to attract more foreign purchases and help the Yiwu market receive more foreign trade orders.
Before “8.2”, Yiwu’s convention and exhibition industry, which is closely related to foreign trade, had also resumed its previous busyness. Among them, the exhibition company’s schedule has reached December, and more and more domestic customers are returning to Yiwu for purchasing. According to data from the “Order + List” monitoring system of Zhejiang Province, where Yiwu is located, the corporate export confidence index has rebounded for two consecutive months, with an increase of 2.3 percentage points in June.
At the end of June, Yiwu also opened its Small Commodity City to Dubai, which allowed a large number of overseas buyers who were unable to arrive in Yiwu due to the epidemic to view samples, select products and place orders “at their doorstep”. This small commodity city is expected to radiate the consumer market of nearly 1 billion people in the surrounding areas (the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, etc.).
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