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A town where the world comes to shop

Pallavi Iyer

Spread over 2.6 million square metres, the market in Yiwu in southern China's Zhejiang province has 50,000 stalls, selling 400,000 categories of products.

PASSED OVER by most popular travel guide books about China, the county-level town of Yiwu in the southern Zhejiang province is nonetheless home to a sight every bit as awesome as Beijing's Forbidden City or Xian's terracotta warriors: Yiwu International Trade City, the largest wholesale market in the world.

Spread over 2.6 million square metres, Yiwu's market boasts 50,000 stalls, selling 400,000 categories of products. Nothing symbolises modern China's status as the factory of the world as potently. A magnet for traders from every nook in the globe, Yiwu's market is clear proof of the fact that almost anything, from African art to statues of Ganesha, can be made in China, cheaper.

Walking through floor after floor of the market, jam-packed with a garish smorgasbord of bric-a-brac, is a vertiginous experience. Wu Wei Rong, Yiwu's Mayor, describes the city as "a sea of commodities and paradise for shoppers." For once the standard official hyperbole lives up to reality.

The town estimates that 8,000 foreign merchants live in Yiwu all year around. Another 200,000 visit for short-term shopping sprees, buying up 400,000 containers full of products for re-sale to over 200 countries across the globe. In 2004, Yiwu's market conducted trade to the tune of Yuan 26.6 billion.

Inside the market, the entire gamut of humanity is represented. New Yorkers rub shoulders with New Caledonians. Differences of colour and race are flattened amidst the levelling desire to get the best bargain going. While merchants from the Middle East and Pakistan are among the most visible on this particular morning, a few dozen Indians — local interpreters in tow — are also busy snapping up quantities of goods.

Dazzling variety

Jayesh from Mumbai has been coming to Yiwu for the last three years. He usually makes four trips a year to the town, buying container loads of garment accessories. He says that a fancy button that would cost Rs.1.50 in India can be bought for Re.1 in Yiwu. However, it is not just the cheaper prices that bring him back again and again, but the sheer variety of the products.

"The quality and variety here can't be found in India," he rues. In addition to the retail shop he owns in Mumbai's Dadar district, Jayesh used to have his own manufacturing unit. But he closed it after a few years.

"We have too many labour problems in India," he says. "If you employ five workers they form a union and their productivity is very low."

Nilesh Shah, also from Mumbai, has visited Yiwu every month for the last five years. He usually buys half a container full of artificial flowers to take back across the Himalayas. "The prices are less than half compared to India and the finish of the products is also better," he says.

"This is the greatest market. You can find everything you want all under one roof," raves Luciana Bois from New Caledonia. It's her first time in Yiwu. She found out about the town on the Internet and decided to give it a shot. "I am coming back several times a year from now on. There is just so much variety," she beams, arms full of neon-coloured bouncy balls.

Variety is certainly something Yiwu is synonymous with.

Each floor of the town's several mall-like markets is dedicated to a single broad category of product. In the "hardware tools and fitting" section for example, you can find car jacks and cheese graters; thigh exercisers and pruning shears. "Fabric plush toys," on the other hand, reveal an ocean of hanging toys, inflatable rafts, kites, balloons, rattlesnake sound-making eggs, superman outfits, cabbage patch dolls, snoopies, and, everywhere, Santa Claus.

Some 70 per cent of the world's Christmas ornaments and other paraphernalia in fact now originate in officially atheist, China. That Christmas is increasingly "made in China" is on patent display in Yiwu. Entire groves of artificial trees, gaggles of angels, and squads of reindeer are available for sale. But it is Santa who is the undoubted star of the show. Santas playing the electric guitar, the trumpet, and the bongo abound, as do Santas on motorcycles, attached to parachutes, and swinging golf clubs.

But while the town does seem partial to Santa, it is by no means mono-religious in outlook. Religious boundaries are no barrier here. Battery powered frames with illuminated verses from the Quran sit right next to gaudy scrolls depicting Ganesha and Krishna.

One stall owner who stocks portraits of the Virgin Mary, Saraswati, and Ganesha, explains that these are all manufactured a few kilometres away from the market, in Yiwu itself. A standard sized scroll with a religious icon goes for Yuan 10 to Yuan 14, but if you buy in bulk the owner says she is willing to negotiate on the price.

This stall is part of the "tourism crafts" section, a floor of baubles that could potentially stock every gift shop on earth. "African carvings" that are made in Henan, decorative bottles of "champagne" made in Guangzhou.

As the unquestionable apotheosis of globalisation, Yiwu is today threatened by the protectionist winds blowing across the Western world from the United States to the European Union. Charges of unfair currency manipulation on China's part and the need for trade quotas and tariffs on Chinese exports are increasingly become common.

Yiwu's Mayor is at pains to stress the benefit that accrues to businesses and consumers across the world from cheap Chinese exports. Judging from the smiling faces of the traders who throng the town's market, he may well be correct.

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