East China's 'world supermarket' sees trade growth

HANGZHOU - The East Chinese city of Yiwu, known as the "world supermarket" for its wholesale goods, saw steady growth in trade last year, the city's customs said Saturday.

Official data showed the city achieved a total trade volume of 211.3 billion yuan ($32.6 billion) from January to November, up 4.4 percent, with exports standing at 208.1 billion yuan, up 4.1 percent, and imports at 3.2 billion yuan, up 34.3 percent.

Yiwu exports over 20,000 types of Christmas items to more than 100 countries and regions every year, accounting for 60 percent of the world's market share. A merchant told Xinhua that her company alone sold 200,000 Christmas trees to countries including the United States, Argentina, Italy and Colombia last year.

According to Yiwu customs, the city exported 1.4 billion yuan of Christmas goods to countries such as Chile, the United States, the Philippines, Brazil and India from January to November.

Belt and Road countries have also become important export destinations, leading many merchants to add Arabic specifications to their products, in addition to Chinese and English.

The customs said India is the largest importer, with trade volume exceeding 13 billion yuan, while Hungary and Angola registered the highest year-on-year growth of 232 percent and 101 percent, respectively.