Where the air smells of orders: Inside Jinhua's rise as an inland hub of China's global trade

HANGZHOU, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- In Jinhua, an inland 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 (about 150.5 billion U.S. dollars) 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.

S-K 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, whose sales rose by 20 to 30 percent in 2025, driven largely by demand from Southeast Asia, where large overseas Chinese communities sustain the market.

Designer Zhang Suhua said she could sell up to a 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 towards 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 2025, 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.

Logistics networks lay a solid foundation for the system. In 2025, the Yixin'ou, also known as the Yiwu-Xinjiang-Europe freight trains, ran more than 3,000 services, connecting Jinhua's trade network to over 160 cities across Eurasia. Improved scheduling cut transit times to Duisburg by 30 percent, allowing home accessories shipments to reach Germany in about 15 days, roughly 20 days faster than by sea. European imports such as auto parts can clear customs in as little as four hours, while logistics costs are around 60 percent lower than air freight.

Trade flows of this scale also depend on a favorable business environment. By standardizing procedures for business registration, visas and taxation, Jinhua has sought to reduce compliance costs for foreign firms. On July 31, 2025, Ali Kamran, a Pakistani entrepreneur, saw his business consulting firm become the 10,000th foreign-funded company registered in Yiwu. His application, he said, was processed within a single day. "That predictability allows me to devote my full attention to building the business."

Since its first foreign-invested business opened in 1989, Yiwu has attracted investors from more than 160 countries and regions, with 81 percent coming from Belt and Road partner countries. Administrative reforms have steadily lowered entry costs, cutting business registration time from a statutory 15 working days to less than one. A one-stop international trade service platform now guides firms through market entry, while foreign entrepreneurs have access to education, healthcare and public transport on the same terms as local residents.

This type of institutional support has helped convince many skilled professionals to stay. Sorin Sirbu, a Romanian businessman, has spent more than a decade in Jinhua building an electric-mobility business whose scooter products reach over 70 countries and regions. His firm holds more than 40 patents, and he has obtained permanent residency. Early guidance on taxation helped keep costs under control, he said, followed by access to Europe via freight trains and targeted policy support, including a 300,000-yuan subsidy for overseas engineering talent. Jinhua has since become his second home.

Openness has also begun to attract creative and technical talent. At Zhejiang Filo Design Co., Ltd. in Yongkang, Italian designer Lorenzo Brandola collaborates closely with factory teams. "From the design studio to the production line is often just a cup of coffee away," he said, a physical proximity that literally shortens the path from concept to market.

In 2025, Filo recruited more than 10 foreign designers, contributing to sales growth of over 20 percent in mobility-related products, according to company head Ying Yuan.

Between 2021 and 2025, Jinhua registered nearly 7,000 foreign-invested firms from 153 countries and regions, drawing 2 billion U.S. dollars of foreign investment. Coming with these investments are foreign talent. By the end of 2025, close to 10,000 foreigners held work permits in the city, with professional talent accounting for more than half.

Jinhua's growth demonstrates that openness is no longer simply defined by proximity to ports, and can be achieved through integrated markets, responsive industries, competitive logistics and reliable institutions. ■