All about Yiwu – The Indo-China trade war city
New Delhi: 300 kilometres south of Shanghai is Yiwu, a city of 1.2 million people. Famous as the commodities capital of China, Yiwu is in news after an Indian diplomat was involved in a scuffle with local traders, prompting the Indian Embassy to issue a strongly worded advisory cautioning Indians “not to do business with Yiwu.”
Two Indian traders, employees of a trading company accused of owing their Chinese suppliers a reported 10 million Yuan (USD 1.58 million), were reportedly kidnapped and tortured for two weeks before being rescued by the police and put up in a hotel.
Yiwu is in many ways symbolic of the pace with which China emerged as world’s manufacturing hub. Part of the Zhejiang province, Yiwu’s China Small-Commodity Market has for 6 consecutive years topped the country’s 100 top open markets.
And notwithstanding the treatment meted out to Indian traders, Yiwu is known as “China’s civilized open market”.
Yiwu’s markets are thronged by traders from across the world in search of quality yet cheap commodity wholesale deals.
Consider the size: there are atleast 25 different ‘markets’ that trade in lakhs of items.
Arts and crafts, DIY and gardening, umbrellas, artificial flowers, stationery, sport and other leisure (fishing, music etc), clocks and watches, eyeglasses and sunglasses, kitchen and bathroom hardware, toys, candles, cosmetics, fashion jewellery, mobile phones accessories, small home appliances/ small electronic products, bags and leather products, shoes market, tissue, cloth, socks market etc are traded in exclusive markets that have multiple shops selling a particular item.
Yiwu is especially famous as the ‘socks town’ with the city manufacturing over 3 billion pairs of socks in a year. Interestingly, Yiwu is also known for its counterfeit market.
Given the Indian obsession for ‘cheap & best’ deals, it was but natural that Indian businessmen pitched tent in the commodities paradise.
As per reports more than a hundred Indians do business in Yiwu and the annual turnover is said to be in billions – source of the deluge of ‘made in China’ stuff in Indian markets.