Inland city makes mark as global biz hub

HANGZHOU — In Jinhua, an inland prefecture-level city in East China's Zhejiang province, traders like to say the air smells of orders. The metaphor reflects the city's buoyancy after it recorded foreign trade worth 1.05 trillion yuan ($150.5 billion) last year.

Goods, contracts and delivery schedules are in constant motion, placing it among China's small group of "trillion-yuan trade cities," despite not having direct access to ports or land borders.

Instead, Jinhua has built a modern trading system powered by manufacturing depth, logistics efficiency and targeted institutional support, which has transformed its long-standing role as a commercial node along China's north-south transport arteries into a large-scale international trading hub.

Historically known as Wuzhou, Jinhua gradually overcame its natural constraints by developing a dense commercial network of markets and suppliers, eventually forming an integrated trading system that extended far beyond the city.

At the center of the system is Yiwu, a city administered by Jinhua, and often described as the world's largest wholesale market for small commodities. The Yiwu International Trade Market hosts nearly 80,000 booths that offer over 2.1 million types of goods, supplying 233 countries and regions.

SK Kamil, vice-president of the Yiwu-Iraq Chamber of Commerce, said Yiwu has built the capacity to supply almost anything global buyers demand, from sewing needles to automobiles and machinery.

In 2025, Yiwu helped push Jinhua's exports to 921.3 billion yuan, up 19.4 percent from a year earlier. The strength is not merely one of volume. Yiwu supplies more than 80 percent of the global market for Spring Festival pictures and couplets, giving it significant influence over a seasonal but widely-distributed niche. Shopfronts display couplets and Fu characters in Malay, Vietnamese and Thai, reflecting demand from Southeast Asia.

"Orders began arriving from the second half of last year," said Xu Zhengxin. "Our sales rose by 20 to 30 percent in 2025, driven largely by demand from Southeast Asia, where large overseas Chinese communities sustain the market," Xu said.

Designer Zhang Suhua said she could sell up to 1 million horse zodiac-themed Crocs accessories a day, many destined for overseas markets serving the same customer base.

Jinhua's surge in foreign trade reflects more than Yiwu's ability to channel goods to the world. Behind the storefronts lies a broad manufacturing base able to meet demand with its diversified supply network. Jinhua spans 33 of China's 41 industrial categories, giving local traders a depth of supply that few places can match.

Yongkang, another county-level city administered by Jinhua, has become a global hub for hardware manufacturing, accounting for about 70 percent of China's security doors, 60 percent of insulated cups and 45 percent of leisure sports vehicles, while gradually shifting toward higher-value production.

Digitalization has given that transition momentum. Livestreaming, platform sales and cross-border e-commerce are increasingly becoming features of Jinhua's export system. In 2025, the city added more than 4,000 export-oriented online shops, while cross-border e-commerce transactions climbed to 169.6 billion yuan.

In Yiwu's bonded zone, warehouse-based livestreaming allows consumers to watch goods being picked directly from shelves. By December, the city had handled more than 100 million cross-border e-commerce import orders in a single year, the first county-level city in China to reach that scale.