On Aug 24, 49 business people from foreign-trade companies left India and Pakistan and came to Yiwu International Trade Market to start their offline business tour.

According to Ge Qiaodi, deputy mayor of the Yiwu municipal government, from July 30 to Aug 28, the first three international charter flights carried overseas foreign business people to Yiwu, which not only provided a channel for people of foreign enterprises to come to Yiwu, but also brought some new customers and new orders, which boosts its market vitality.

"Most of the goods they purchase are non-standardized, multi-variety and of small-batch, which requires face-to-face communication during the procurement process. Therefore, it is particularly important to see samples on the spot. If purchasing online, there may be only some small orders. But if purchasing offline, large orders will be available," Ge explained. "That is why the form of charted flights is important during this period," he added.

"Our chartered flight was planned from the beginning of July this year because the chartered flights in Yiwu are different from those in other places across the country. The chartered flights in other places mainly send local workers to overseas countries on business trips, but those in Yiwu aim to bring foreign business people here," said Ge.

"We have also launched the second batch of chartered flights, which are scheduled to be completed in September," Ge said. He added that Yiwu is ready to welcome foreigners to come at any time to conduct business.

"In the past few years, affected by the epidemic, the difficulties of entering Yiwu are the biggest problems faced international buyers. Before the epidemic, there were about 15,000 foreigners stationed in Yiwu, and the number of people entering the country each year exceeded 550,000.But now, there are only about 9,000 permanent foreign workers here, and the number of temporary entries last year was only about 30,000," said Ge.

"To better facilitate business negotiation amid the pandemic, we also opened the online market and developed a comprehensive trade service platform, providing online services for production, growth, negotiation, assembly, logistics, foreign exchange settlement and other transactional processes," Ge added.

"In addition, we actively use self-built or franchised methods to develop overseas warehouses. At present, our warehouses cover 47 countries and regions. Using these, we can build an exhibition hall and send samples from the Yiwu market to the overseas warehouses so that foreign customers can check out samples and purchase products in their own countries," said Ge.

"In terms of growing freight prices, we have opened many channels, such as the China-Europe freight train. This year, we have sent more than 1,000 such trains. At the same time, our market management agency has also cooperated with centrally owned enterprises to lease warehouses at suitable prices to reduce logistics costs," Ge added.

On Aug 16, the 1,000th China-Europe freight train departed from the Yiwu railway port, providing a stable and smooth international logistics and transportation channel.

Numbers from the Yiwu Bureau of Statistics showed that the delivery volume of Yiwu's express service reached a total of 4.245 billion pieces, which was the same during the period last year, and its business revenue hit 12.2 billion yuan ($1.76 billion), an increase of 11.3 percent year-on-year.

In 2021, Yiwu's exports reached 290.16 billion yuan through market procurement trade, accounting for 31.2 percent of the country's total.

From January to July, the total import and export value of Yiwu reached 268.17 billion yuan, an increase of 33.8 percent over the same period last year. Among them, exports reached 244.44 billion yuan, an increase of 29.1 percent year-on-year.