China's small-commodity hub transacts over 1b digital RMB

HANGZHOU -- Over 90 percent of businesses in Yiwu city, China's small-commodity hub, have accepted digital renminbi payment on the city's official digital platform, with more than 60,000 digital yuan wallets opened and deals of over 1 billion yuan ($145 million) transacted so far.

The city in East China's Zhejiang province has launched its pilot work plan on promoting China's digital fiat currency, or the e-CNY, in the local small-commodity market. It plans to explore more e-CNY application scenarios, including allocating financial subsidies in the small-commodity market and paying employee wages, parking lot fees, rental fees, and utility bills.

According to the work plan, by the end of 2023, Yiwu will transact over 1 million deals worth over 10 billion yuan in its small-commodity market. The digital RMB payment service will cover 90 percent of its offline businesses in operation and be accessible for more than 95 percent of the businesses on Yiwu's official digital platform, Chinagoods.

In March, Zhejiang's first e-CNY exchange machine was set up in Yiwu, able to exchange 19 major currencies, including RMB, and directly exchange foreign currency notes into physical e-CNY wallets without downloading mobile payment applications.

With visual and audio guidance in eight languages, the machine can help solve the problems of excessive foreign exchange procedures and difficulties for overseas customers in China.

Yiwu, often referred to as "the world's supermarket," has an abundant variety of commodities, convenient and fast logistics, and a good business environment.