Yiwu trade tops 600 billion yuan in first 9 months of 2025, as surge in foreign buyers accelerate business confidence

Foreign buyers visit Yiwu International Trade Market in Yiwu, East China’s Zhejiang Province, on September 26, 2025. Photo: Zhang Yiyi/GT

Yiwu in East China’s Zhejiang Province reported record foreign trade volume in the first three quarters of this year, with total imports and exports surpassing 600 billion yuan ($83 billion) for the first time during the same period, while inbound foreign business visits exceeded 460,000, up 20 percent year-on-year, China Media Group (CMG) reported on Tuesday. 

Exporters in Yiwu told Global Times that the surge in foreign business visits has opened up broader access to global clients this year, giving them greater confidence in the foreign trade outlook.

Despite a volatile external environment, Yiwu, known as the world’s largest small-commodities hub and a leading engine of China’s county-level foreign trade, continues to demonstrate strong resilience.

Foreign trade in Yiwu reached 631.2 billion yuan in the January-September period, rising 26.3 percent year-on-year. Exports amounted to 553.99 billion yuan, up 25.7 percent, while imports climbed 31.3 percent to 77.21 billion yuan, all hitting record highs, according to CMG.

The city’s trade volume in the first three quarters is close to last year’s full-year total of 668.93 billion yuan. Thanks to China’s expanding visa-free arrangements with more countries and regions, the number of foreign traders arriving in Yiwu has kept expanding.

Yiwu conducted trade with 227 countries and regions in the first three quarters, with 181 posting year-on-year growth in bilateral trade, said Xu Kai, an official with Yiwu Customs, per CMG.

In this favorable context, exporters in Yiwu from sectors such as hardware, toys and sporting goods told Global Times that with sustained policy support and improving external demand, their foreign trade orders posted steady growth in the first three quarters, while their market reach continued to diversify.

“Our export performance has broadly tracked the overall positive trend. In the first three quarters, our shipments reached almost the same level as the whole of last year,” said Shi Mi, owner of Yiwu-based hardware manufacturer Danmi Tools. 

Shi noted that the company has expanded its overseas customer base, with more inquiries from Europe and elsewhere. “The number of source countries we engaged with this year has increased by roughly 20 percent,” he added.

Shi said another notable shift in Yiwu’s trade landscape is that many businesses which previously focused on the home market are now pivoting to export-oriented operations.

Another football exporter, surnamed Chen, who has been engaged in the sports goods business for more than two decades, said that thanks to major international tournaments scheduled for the near future, this year’s export orders have barely seen an off-season.

“Many South American buyers began placing orders with us this year,” Chen told  Global Times. “Typically, July is our slack season, but orders started to pick up from July onward. Compared with past years, the low season was much less noticeable. We kept shipping in the first half of the year, and peak deliveries will run from October through next May, driven by fan demand ahead of the World Cup.” Chen said each World Cup year usually boosts the company’s profits by 30 percent. 

Beyond long-established traders, newly arrived toy designers in the Yiwu International Trade Market told Global Times that the surge in foreign buyers this year has quickly translated into more inquiries and tangible business opportunities.

“Previously we relied mainly on domestic platforms to expand our business. Since opening a store here, we have been able to connect with more overseas buyers. Foreign trade now accounts for roughly half of our total sales, and the share could rise further, which is already a very encouraging level for us,” said Gu Huijie, a designer of handcrafted clothing for trendy toys, on Tuesday.

Gu noted that the shift has become particularly visible in the second half of the year, as foreign buyer visits increased markedly compared with the first half. She said the shop now receives multiple groups of international clients almost every day, and foreign traders are noticeably more present at booths and in the market corridors, reflecting a clear improvement in business sentiment.

Notably, Yiwu’s vast foreign trade market, home to tens of thousands of merchants, has long moved beyond relying solely on offline interactions with buyers, with more businesses harnessing fast-growing social media platforms to reach global customers.

Capitalizing on the rapid rise of overseas e-commerce, many Yiwu market operators and companies are increasingly turning to digital trade and online platforms to scale up their export businesses, a trend that is fast becoming a shared business strategy in Yiwu.

The Yiwu Global Digital Trade Center, hailed as the sixth-generation market of Yiwu — also known as “the world’s supermarket” — officially opened on October, marking a significant leap from traditional trade to a fully integrated digital trade ecosystem.

Within the center’s premises, more than 3,700 new merchants can leverage stable cross-border networks to communicate and negotiate with global clients in real time, Xinhua News Agency reported. They can also seamlessly conduct live streams to showcase their products directly to overseas customers, offering an immersive “in-store” experience for buyers thousands of miles away.