www.7days.ae/business
7DAYS
WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 18, 2009 17
A
small trade city in
eastern China has
become a magnet for
Arab and African business
people looking to purchase
goods at what is the world’s
largest wholesale market for
small products.
The effect of the influx on
Yiwu is visible as soon as
you step off the plane, with
airport billboards in Arabic
and the city boasting the
biggest mosque in China, as
well as a district full of
Middle Eastern restaurants.
Annick Ibrahim, a retailer
from Nigeria, discovered the
market city three years ago.
“I now come here regularly to
buy various products, pres-
ents and household items,”
she said.
“The quality is good because
they are used to selling things
to Westerners, and prices are
much more attractive than
European markets.”
In the West, China’s appetite
for Africa’s oil and other
natural resources has stolen
the headlines.
But it is markets such as
those in Yiwu that illustrate a
greater depth to the trade
relationship, as China feeds
Africa with an abundance of
cheap goods.
Sunda Andre, who works for a
goods shop in Angola’s capi-
tal Luanda and now lives in
the southern Chinese city of
Guangzhou, says she finds
everything she wants in Yiwu.
“Good quality, good prices -
we dispatch one container a
year,” she said.
An annual trade fair in
October saw a rise in orders China draws new consumers
from the Middle East and
Africa, according to Li
Xuhang, vice-mayor of the
Emerging markets are meeting the Chinese market - and there’s money to be made for all
city, just as demand from
Western and many Asian Li said. Although he had no friends would earn extra company headquartered The three associates now Technology and raw materi-
countries dropped due to the specific numbers of Africans money every year by in the capital of Mauritania. have “nice little assets” and als are also in short supply,”
global economic crisis. in Yiwu, Li said at least 300 translating for businessmen Their made-in-China tea, dispatched 700 containers to he said.
As a result, authorities are were from Mauritania. at an annual trade fair batteries, textiles and soap are Africa in 2008 from various Unlike in Yiwu, where seem-
now devoting more and more El Moctar Ould Khalifa is part in Guangzhou. now distributed in the vast parts of China - 160 of which ingly everything is available,
time to emerging countries of the Mauritanian commu- They then started getting majority of west African coun- came from Yiwu. from beach bags meant as
such as Brazil and Russia as nity, and was one of many their own contacts, setting up tries near Mauritania, under They dream of establishing souvenirs from the West
well as Arab and African Africans who came to China fax machines in their univer- their own brand ‘El Hella’. factories in Africa, but the Indies to a Milanese key-ring
nations - and the to study thanks to scholar- sity rooms and working as “A lot of Africans came here current situation there is or traditional African attire.
latter have reciprocated. ships from Beijing. middlemen between foreign for counterfeit goods, but we not yet secure enough, El Overall, trade between China
Out of 10,000 foreigners liv- At the end of the 1990s, as he buyers and sellers in China. managed to establish our Moctar said. and Africa grew 45 per cent
ing in Yiwu, around 3,000 are was studying for a PhD in the In 2000, they moved to Yiwu brand... even though it is a “The workforce [in Africa] last year to $106.8 billion,
from Arab countries, and Chinese capital, the young and launched their own little bit more expensive,” might be cheaper, but it and is up from just under
many others are from Africa, man and two Mauritanian business, an export-import El Moctar said. poses more problems. $40 billion in 2005.
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