A few years later, when people mention Yiwu, the first thing that comes to mind may no longer be "small commodities", but "big equipment".
Perhaps you do not believe that many businessmen to do business in Yiwu only know Yiwu, but not smell Hangzhou.
They come from all over the world to buy shoes, socks, hats, shirts... In their eyes, these products from Yiwu, one of China's most famous cities, are synonymous with "Made in China".
As a trade and logistics city, Yiwu's influence comes from its growth over the past 30 years. The city has contributed a huge amount of import and export trade to the country, transforming itself from an unknown small county in central Zhejiang Province into an economic powerhouse with a GDP of over 80 billion yuan in the process.
In the past few decades, Yiwu has left a reputation as "the largest small commodity trading market in the world" on the world economic stage. Yiwu merchants carry this card with them to do business in every corner of the world. As the world's premier trade platform, Yiwu gathers small commodities from Zhejiang, China and even the rest of the world, weaving a huge wealth network.
It can be said that Yiwu's success is a microcosm of the process of economic reform and opening up along China's east coast. Now, at a time of great uncertainty for the Chinese economy as a whole, Yiwu is also preparing for a change, taking advantage of the economic transformation and upgrading of Zhejiang Province.
Zhejiang strives to be a Strong Province in Equipment Manufacturing
This is Zhejiang "strong province strategy" another drop.
On April 3, Zhejiang Provincial government issued Several Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Modern Equipment Manufacturing Industry, proposing that "the development of modern equipment manufacturing industry as the cultivation of strategic emerging industries" as the primary task, encouraging private capital, state-owned capital, foreign capital and knowledge capital to invest in modern equipment manufacturing industry. We will accelerate the transformation from traditional equipment manufacturing to modern equipment manufacturing and from a large province of equipment manufacturing to a strong province of equipment manufacturing.
Development goals have been set. In the next three years, the average annual growth rate of the added value of modern equipment manufacturing industry above designated size in Zhejiang Province will be 12%, which will reach 600 billion yuan by 2015, accounting for 35.6% of the added value of manufacturing industry from the current 32.6%.
In this process, Zhejiang plans to cultivate about 100 key enterprises and research institutes with the capability of independent design and research of major equipment, form a number of high-end intelligent equipment and well-known brands with independent intellectual property rights, cultivate about 50 leading backbone enterprises of integrated equipment manufacturing with strong international competitiveness, and about 8 modern equipment high-tech zones. There are about 30 modern equipment manufacturing industrial bases with prominent advantages in featured products, a certain scale and reasonable specialization and division of labor, and about 20 key industrial chains of equipment manufacturing with strong innovation ability and leading market share in the country.
Zhejiang is a big industrial province, but in recent years, with the change of industrial environment, Zhejiang industry is facing unprecedented pressure. "After the financial crisis, the market competition is further intensified. Whether we can improve our market share is closely related to transformation and upgrading." He believes that industrial transformation and upgrading can not stay in words, Zhejiang's industry needs a "new hope", to take a higher level of development route, to earn more profits.
This is also one of the reasons why Zhejiang proposed to vigorously develop the equipment manufacturing industry, because the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries or the acceleration of the development of emerging industries need the support of the equipment manufacturing industry. Moreover, the equipment manufacturing industry itself is the pillar industry of Zhejiang Province. Data show that there were 13,685 equipment manufacturing enterprises above designated size in Zhejiang last year, with total assets of 2,005 billion yuan, an increase of 8.8% over the previous year, accounting for 36.5% of the total industrial assets above designated size in Zhejiang Province. It can be seen that accelerating the development of modern equipment manufacturing industry is also the internal requirement of Zhejiang's economic transformation and upgrading.
In this context, Yiwu, with its unique advantages, has become the trade bridgehead for the development of equipment manufacturing industry in Zhejiang. It is clearly pointed out in the above "several opinions" that Zhejiang will hold the equipment manufacturing Expo in Yiwu to create an international trade trading platform for modern equipment manufacturing. Taking this opportunity, Yiwu also put forward a new positioning of its own - "international equipment trade center".
Yiwu's new business card
In fact, developing equipment trade is not only the strategic requirement of Zhejiang's economic development, but also the internal need of Yiwu's economic transformation.
"From the experience of industrial upgrading in some developed countries, such as Japan, we can see that it is inevitable for economic restructuring to shift from selling terminal goods, to selling equipment for manufacturing goods, and then to selling equipment, raw materials and components for manufacturing equipment." Xiang Mingsheng, deputy director of the management committee of Yiwu Business Service Industry Cluster, said in an interview with China Mechanical and Electrical Industry.
Such considerations are not entirely informed by foreign experience. For example, at present, in the Yiwu small commodity market, the commodities purchased by Indian merchants are not only limited to terminal commodities, but also tend to purchase equipment and raw materials to produce terminal commodities. This trend is becoming more and more obvious as China's low-end manufacturing industry moves to developing countries such as Southeast Asia, India and Africa. Extending to the upstream of the industrial chain seems to be the inevitable direction of Yiwu's economic transformation.
On the other hand, under the current situation of labor shortage and rising labor cost, Zhejiang Province is pushing forward the strategy of "replacing the machine with the man" to improve labor productivity and traditional industries with modern and automated equipment. Zhejiang industrial technological transformation investment shows a strong growth trend. This undoubtedly means a huge market opportunity for equipment manufacturing industry. Statistics show that in 2011, Zhejiang's industrial investment was more than 600 billion yuan, of which about 350 billion yuan was invested in technological transformation, and more than 200 billion yuan was spent on equipment.
As the flagship of trade and logistics in Zhejiang Province, Yiwu timely put forward the new goal of building "an important town of international equipment trade", in order to promote its own trade platform transformation and upgrading. "Through the holding of equipment manufacturing expo and the establishment of long-term means of production market, to create a modern equipment manufacturing industry trade platform, while assisting the implementation of Zhejiang traditional manufacturing industry" machine replacement "plan, but also play a role in attracting investment, and display equipment manufacturing enterprises' products and scientific and technological achievements. Xiang Mingsheng said.
According to the introduction, the first China Yiwu International Equipment Manufacturing Expo will be held in Yiwu in November this year, and then held annually; Markets for the means of production are the equivalent of a never-ending fair. According to the plan, Yiwu will take 10 to 20 years to build an international market for means of production with a total area of 12.8 square kilometers. The first phase of the project will be completed and opened this year, and the market and supporting facilities of 2 million square meters will be completed in 2016. Through the construction of international means of production market, Yiwu market will realize the extension from terminal sales field to equipment manufacturing industry, raw material supply, technical skills training and other upstream fields.
"Yiwu needs to find its own positioning, from a small commodity trade center to equipment trade center, means of production trade center. The market has begun to change, and our industries can only upgrade, not retreat. Only industrial upgrading can adapt to the rising labor and environmental costs. Otherwise, we may soon see a glass ceiling restricting middle-income countries." Xiang Mingsheng pointed out.
What are the advantages of Yiwu building "international equipment trade center"? In Xiang Mingsheng's opinion, Yiwu's perfect logistics system, mature exhibition experience, superior trade policy as a national pilot city, as well as its exhibition industry, logistics industry and trade industry as the leading industry has been highly valued by the government. These good basic conditions will continue to attract domestic and foreign merchants and create more trading opportunities. Thus drive the transformation and development of Zhejiang and even the whole country industry. It is especially worth mentioning that on May 1st this year, Yiwu was officially upgraded to "International Land Port City". From then on, Yiwu will enjoy more preferential and convenient customs clearance policies in the Asia-Pacific region, which will further improve its international influence and status in international trade.
"We are confident to build Yiwu Garment Expo into a professional exhibition with distinctive features and international influence." Xiang Mingsheng said. "In the Middle East, Africa, South America and many other countries and regions in the world, Yiwu has a good reputation among buyers, which is an incomparable advantage of Yiwu. In the future, we will continue to take advantage of this advantage to accelerate the role of Yiwu as a platform and window of modern equipment trade, so as to lead Zhejiang and even China's equipment manufacturing industry to the world."
