Yiwu The 10th Anniversary of the Five Central Asian Countries "China-Europe Express departed from Yiwu, Zhejiang. Xinhua News Agency.
The Spring Festival is approaching, and consumers purchase goods in Yiwu International Trade City. Photo by Wu Fengyu Bright**.
Overlooking Yiwu International Trade City. Photo courtesy of Yiwu Rong ** Center.
In September 2023, during his inspection in Zhejiang, the general secretary came to Yiwu International Trade City for inspection. **The general secretary emphasized that Yiwu small commodities have broken out of the big market and become a big industry, and it is great to come to this point, everyone is a participant, builder and contributor. The trade city should create new brilliance and make greater contributions to the expansion of domestic and international markets and the smooth domestic and international dual circulation.
From the "chicken feathers for sugar" in the streets and alleys to the "world supermarket" that buys and sells the world, from a county-level small city to an important node city of the "Belt and Road", Yiwu City, Zhejiang Province, which is prosperous because of the city, is interpreting the charm of the times of "the world's small commodity capital" with its own unique vitality and strength.
Yiwu has always kept in mind the entrustment, insisted on playing the innovation card, eating reform, merging "small commodities" into "big market", forming "big industry", and promoting "big opening up", realizing the leap from a small resource city to a large economic city, from an inland county town to an open highland. A few days ago, the Guangming ** research team walked into Yiwu, interviewed and researched market merchants and related units, and explored the practical path of Yiwu to cultivate and develop new momentum through reform and innovation.
1. Start a new brand of "Made in Yiwu" with product innovation.
Yiwu is not only a distribution center for small commodities, but also a manufacturing capital full of creativity and vitality. Here, every small commodity contains the ingenuity and unremitting pursuit of the manufacturers. From clothing, shoes and bags to new cultural and creative products full of science and technology and fashion, more than 2.1 million kinds of goods in 26 categories are sold to 219 countries and regions by sea, land and air.
In the Yiwu International Trade City, the research team saw a shop selling electric mosquito swatters. This seemingly ordinary store has achieved the miracle of "products have seasons and sales have no off-season", and sold products to 152 countries and regions. In winter, it can auction electric mosquitoes to customers in the southern hemisphere; In the summer, electric mosquitoes can be auctioned off to customers in the northern hemisphere. Behind the "Global Cargo Express" is continuous product innovation, so that enterprises can effectively respond to the pressure of competition in overseas markets. The manufacturer of the products of this store, Yiwu Litian Electric Appliances, has been certified as a high-tech enterprise and a technology-based small and medium-sized enterprise.
Merchants keep up with market demand, accurately grasp consumer preferences with keen market insight, explore potential market opportunities, constantly innovate, and quickly transform ideas into actual products. This market-oriented innovation model ensures that Yiwu products can continue to win the favor of the market.
Recently, "small sugar orange" and "small potato" have become hot words on the Internet. According to these hot words, Yiwu seized market opportunities and made soft and cute small ornaments. As soon as the "small sugar orange" and "small potato" ornaments were listed, they attracted the attention of many customers, and orders flew like snowflakes.
The most important thing for cultural and creative products is timing, and we also saw that Harbin was on fire, so we started to do R&D and design as soon as possible, and quickly produced products to meet the personalized needs of consumers. Chen Guo, creative director of Yiwu Yuanmo Cultural Communication, who developed small ornaments, said that more than 300,000 pieces of "small sugar orange" and "small potato" ornaments were sold in a month, and the company is still continuing to develop, and will successively launch representative products with regional characteristics and constantly enrich the product line.
Through the adoption of new ideas and new processes, Yiwu merchants continue to increase the added value of products, strive to provide consumers with more high-quality and practical choices, and constantly improve the brand image of "Made in Yiwu".
As a veteran knitted socks manufacturer in Yiwu, Mengna Hosiery is the first "Future Factory" enterprise in Yiwu Province. In the "Future Factory" production workshop of Mengna Hosiery, you can see dozens of A** (automatic guided vehicle) intelligent robots carrying goods shuttled between various stations, they either distribute production raw materials for each station according to the instructions, or take the elevator to go up and down the stairs to carry products, and the workshop is full of science and technology.
From the official investment in digital transformation in 2019 to the provincial 'factory of the future' in 2022, we have basically achieved the goal of improving comprehensive production efficiency, with labor costs and energy consumption significantly reduced, while the qualification rate of products has still increased, and sales have increased by more than 20%. Wu Xiaobin, deputy general manager of Mengna Hosiery, said, "Our company's digital solutions have been applied to many factories inside and outside the province, empowering the digital transformation of other factories. β
Yiwu enterprises represented by Mengna Hosiery are at the forefront of digital development, actively investing in the construction of "future factories", using digital technology to improve production efficiency and reduce production costs, providing a useful reference for the transformation and upgrading of traditional manufacturing industry.
From "building a city" and "trade and industry linkage" to "future factory" and "Yiwu intelligent manufacturing", today's Yiwu has become an important gateway for China's small commodity manufacturing to the world, realizing the leapfrog development from traditional manufacturing to intelligent manufacturing.
2. Innovate the model and open up new channels for Rio Tinto markets.
Walking into Yiwu International Trade City, every shop hangs a bright Chinese knot, and the lintel is pasted with a new Spring Festival couplet, which is filled with the festive atmosphere of the New Year...... everywhereThe soaring popularity value in the live broadcast room of each store, and the continuous turnover in the background show the new vitality of the era of "the world's largest small commodity wholesale market" with a history of more than 40 years.
One customer saw our live broadcast and placed an order of more than 600,000 yuan in one go, and many old customers continued to negotiate business with us after seeing the live broadcast. Fu Jiangyan, who has been operating in Yiwu International Trade City for 17 years, said happily that by participating in the live broadcast training organized by the Yiwu Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau and the Municipal Women's Federation, she has grown from a novice in live broadcast to a live broadcast expert holding the "Internet Marketer" certificate.
Fu Jiangyan's growth experience of live streaming is a microcosm of the digital business model innovation of the Trade City. Under the wave of "digital everything", Yiwu grasps the opportunity of the times, conforms to the new trend of market format evolution, establishes the development of e-commerce as a strategic leading industry for market transformation, vigorously develops new models such as "Internet celebrity + new retail" and "AI digital human anchor", accelerates the creation of diversified application scenarios covering jewelry, beauty, toys and other advantageous industries, and promotes the precise docking of market supply and demand and the co-creation of user value.
The webcast has further broadened the market for the operators of Yiwu International Trade City. Yu Zhonghua, member of the Party Group of Yiwu Market Development Committee and chief of the e-commerce section, said that in 2024, Yiwu will continue to provide good services, attract more leading live broadcast companies to land, and introduce relevant policies to attract more live broadcast talents to Yiwu for development.
With the advancement of Yiwu's "e-commerce for market" development strategy, Yiwu's e-commerce business entities have grown rapidly, which not only helps the high-quality development of the regional economy, but also plays a role in radiating and driving the domestic market to a certain extent. In 2023, the number of e-commerce entities in Yiwu will exceed 600,000, and the online retail sales will rank first in Zhejiang Province. Relying on online and offline linkage, Yiwu has also driven the transformation and development of more than 20 industrial clusters.
In Futian Street, Yiwu City, the new signboard of Yiwu Sixth Generation Market, the Global Digital Trade Center, is dazzling. With the vigorous development of global digital **, Yiwu market has once again entered a new track of market development after six iterative upgrades of relocation, ten expansions, and five generations of jumps.
The construction of a global digital trade center is a pragmatic move for Yiwu to actively conform to the trend of the times and grasp the development opportunities. He Xiaoqing, a senior lecturer at the Municipal Research Center of the Party School of the Yiwu Municipal Party Committee, believes that "this will help the Yiwu market to better integrate all kinds of resources, break through the limitations of time and space, efficiently link and integrate into the global network, and make greater contributions to the smooth domestic and international dual circulation." β
The research team learned that Yiwu, as an explorer and practitioner of market innovation and development, has been committed to providing a full range of first-class services for all kinds of merchants, and promoting the realization of "global commerce" by broadening the digital channel of foreign trade. In October 2020, relying on the overall resource advantages of the small commodity market, Yiwu launched the digital first-class comprehensive service platform - Chinagoods platform. By connecting the needs of supply and demand in real time in production design, logistics and warehousing, financial credit and other links, the Chinagoods platform can help users "one-click access" to global small commodities. At present, the Chinagoods platform has opened 6 national stations, and the total number of operators in the market has reached 580,000, with a cumulative transaction amount of more than 96 billion yuan. With the help of digital technology, Yiwu is building a global network of national and industrial cooperation, striving to drive more small, medium and micro enterprises to connect with the international market, participate in the global division of labor, and accelerate the integrated development of domestic and foreign trade.
Behind the "going to sea" of each product, it is inseparable from a convenient and smooth logistics network.
In Yiwu Port, trucks full of goods are preparing to go to Ningbo Zhoushan Port to load ships and go to sea. At the Yiwu railway port, the "Yixin Europe" China-Europe train with a whistle is speeding towards the other end of the Eurasian continent. Today, Yiwu has a full range of foreign trade export logistics methods such as sea, land, air, railway, mail, etc., so that the export of goods is more efficient. In 2023, the total import and export value of Yiwu will reach 5660500 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 182%γThe "Yixinou" China-Europe Express has opened 25 routes, covering more than 50 countries and regions and reaching 160 cities, becoming a golden business card for Zhejiang's "going global".
3. Shaping new advantages in economic development through institutional innovation.
Dare to poke the ceiling and wade into the deep water. From "chicken feathers for sugar" to "world supermarket", Yiwu focuses on institutional innovation, focusing on transportation, investment, capital, personnel exchanges, etc., and has the courage to carry out institutional reforms, which fully demonstrates the responsibility of being a pioneer in reform.
In April 2013, the Ministry of Commerce and other eight ministries and commissions jointly issued a letter agreeing to try out the market procurement method in Yiwu. In the past 11 years, this method has built a low-cost and high-efficiency export channel for the majority of merchants. In recent years, Yiwu has further implemented the "market procurement 20 reform", the implementation of the market procurement export enterprise classification and grading management system, optimize the supervision rules, the first to pilot the General Administration of Customs' "first inspection before shipment" supervision model, greatly simplified the links, effectively stimulated the main vitality of the foreign trade market.
In the Yiwu Railway Port Phase II consolidation warehouse, batches of export goods are being scanned, measured and weighed through the assembly line, and later these LCL goods do not need to be inspected by the customs, which will be completed in the warehouse according to the export destination and shipping schedule.
Zhang Tao, chief of the logistics monitoring section of Yiwu Customs, said that the innovative pilot model of "first inspection and then shipment" allows export goods to enter the "consolidation" under the supervision of the customs in the form of bulk cargo, which solves many problems such as difficulty in unpacking, finding goods, and repacking when the goods are selected for inspection, helping enterprises effectively save the cost of unpacking and secondary packing, and greatly improving the timeliness of customs clearance operations for inspection containers.
The research team learned that Yiwu is also further promoting the construction of the Yiyongzhou Open Channel, accelerating the construction of the "Sixth Port Area" of Ningbo Zhoushan Port, and further promoting the integrated reform of railways, customs, ports and shipping. At present, the "Sixth Port Area" has increased the efficiency of sea-rail intermodal transportation by about 20%, saving an average of 300 yuan per container and shortening the site turnover time by more than 1 day.
In the process of promoting reform, Yiwu has always adhered to the "visible hand" and "invisible hand" to work together, make every effort to solve the difficulties encountered in the development of the market, and promote the all-round, efficient and convenient flow of market, logistics, capital flow, information flow, data flow, etc. Yang Zhiwen, an associate researcher at the Party School of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee, who has been tracking and studying the development of Yiwu for a long time, believes that "Yiwu also actively promotes the linkage of reform points, lines and surfaces, and constantly amplifies the 'multiplier' effect of reform." β
Over the years, Yiwu has undertaken more than 30 "national brand" reform pilots and more than 40 provincial reform pilots. The international comprehensive reform pilot, the pilot free trade zone, and the national import promotion innovation demonstration zone are superimposed and integrated in Yiwu to promote the deepening and practical reform of various fields. For example, in terms of capital facilitation, the "Yiwu Pay" platform created by Yiwu Commodity City has helped more than 1 million market entities and more than 2.1 million upstream and downstream small, medium and micro enterprises to "digital chain global and unbounded payment"; In terms of facilitation of personnel travel, the company has innovatively launched foreign business friend cards, with a total of about 300,000 cards issued, providing foreigners with more than 20 scenario applications involving identity verification, financial services, social security and other fields, so that foreigners can better integrate into Yiwu; In terms of intellectual property protection, we will continue to improve the multi-mediation system for disputes, so that market disputes do not leave the market.
In order to accelerate the construction of a world-class model city with a business environment, Yiwu is stepping up efforts to carry out business environment reform. According to reports, in 2023, 12 new enterprise value-added services such as data services and commercial services will be added to the Yiwu Enterprise Comprehensive Service Center. At the same time, Yiwu is also making every effort to create a "24-hour non-closing" government affairs environment to comprehensively improve the service experience of enterprises and the masses.
In 2023, Yiwu will exceed one million market operators and export tax rebates of more than 10 billion yuan, becoming the first county-level city in the country with an annual express delivery volume of more than 10 billion pieces.
4 Lessons and Revelations.
Only reformers advance, only innovators are strong. The research team believes that Yiwu's butterfly change code from "small business" to "big market" and "big industry" lies in always maintaining the courage and tenacity to dare to innovate and be good at change. By identifying the needs for innovation, conforming to the trend and seeking upgrading, and facing problems and grasping reforms, Yiwu has embarked on a new kinetic energy cultivation path of "strengthening the foundation of product innovation, optimizing the benefits of model innovation, and shaping advantages through institutional innovation", which provides useful inspiration for the solid promotion of high-quality economic development in various places.
Enlightenment 1: Closely follow the changes in consumer demand and do a good job in iterative updates of products and services. Consumption has a lasting driving force for the economy. Whether it is the excavation of domestic consumer demand or the further expansion of foreign consumer demand, it is an effective way to stimulate new momentum. Yiwu enterprises are the key points of the consumer market, on the one hand, they are keenly aware of the changes in the domestic and foreign markets, and take the initiative to connect and serve; On the other hand, we will continue to meet the needs of consumption upgrading, continuously improve the added value of products and services with new ideas, new technologies and new processes, and achieve efficient iteration and innovation. In the face of a fiercely competitive market environment, the quality of products and services is still the foundation, and enterprises must grasp the key to meet the growing and diversified needs of consumers as the goal, stimulate potential consumption, cultivate and expand new consumption, and promote the formation of a virtuous circle in which consumption and investment promote each other.
Enlightenment 2: Strengthen digital technology innovation to lead the construction of a modern industrial system. Scientific and technological innovation is an important engine for generating new momentum for economic development. In the digital era, digital technologies represented by big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence have accelerated innovation and are widely used, injecting new vitality into the cultivation of new industrial momentum. In the face of the wave of digitalization, Yiwu firmly grasps the opportunity to be the first to seek and do the first. The first is to fully embrace digitalization, and promote all-round digital innovation in all fields of business and trade transactions by actively building a digital platform and expanding application scenarios. The second is to fully empower market players, Yiwu actively uses digital technology to empower merchants, small and micro enterprises, so that many market players engaged in traditional industries have also caught the digital "express", to achieve in-depth changes from concept to product to model. In the context of the in-depth development of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, it is necessary to actively expand the breadth of digital innovation and application, give birth to more new industries and new models, and open up new fields and new tracks for development. At the same time, it is also necessary to dig deeper, use digital technology and digital thinking to systematically reshape all kinds of market players, so that they can share the digital dividend, so as to lay a solid micro foundation for comprehensively improving the modernization level of the industrial system.
Enlightenment 3: Take advantage of the situation to promote the reform from pilot to comprehensive deepening. Reform is a powerful driving force for economic development, and it is very important to continue to promote institutional and institutional reform for high-quality economic development. For a long time, the Yiwu Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government have taken reform as a major political responsibility and have a strong ideological consciousness and action consciousness. In the specific promotion process, the first is to deal with the relationship between the overall situation and the local, make good use of the policy wind, gradually refine the implementation under the top-level design, and grasp the key issues of the reform pilot work; Second, it is necessary to properly handle the relationship between overall advancement and key breakthroughs, not only grasp important areas, important tasks, and important pilots, but also grasp key subjects, key links, and key nodes, so as to drive the overall situation with key points and implement various reform tasks. In the face of the complex situation and heavy tasks of reform, we must adhere to the strong determination of reform to the end, formulate targeted reform measures and plans in combination with the actual and practical problems of various localities, and grasp and implement them one by one according to the priorities.
Author: Guangming ** Research Group Research Group Members: Hu Qing, Xu Mengzhou, Yang Dapeng, researcher of Zhejiang Provincial Party School Research Base of Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee Research Center for Socialist Thought with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era, Zhejiang Provincial Party School Zhejiang Provincial Party School "88 Strategy" Innovation and Development Research Institute, reporter Lu Jian).