Yiwu Cross-Border E-Commerce Association led its members to South Korea for inspection and study.
“The important instructions made by General Secretary Xi Jinping recently are the loudest call to arms for our cross-border e-commerce merchants in Yiwu.” On the afternoon of April 23, Xu Yan, president of the Yiwu Cross-border E-Commerce Association, who was preparing to rush to other places to inspect the market, said excitedly.
Xu Yan is a “grassroots” entrepreneur.
14 years ago, he came to Yiwu alone from Zhumadian, Henan, with his luggage on his back to start a business.
“I just got off the train and saw that the streets were full of shops, and there were so many small commodities that I couldn’t see them.” Xu Yan recalled that at that time he thought to himself: “I have come to Yiwu.”
Starting from scratch, Xu Yan has witnessed the gorgeous transformation of Yiwu from traditional offline trade to a deep integration of online and offline.
In the blink of an eye, more than ten years have passed. When Xu Yan first arrived in Yiwu, Yiwu’s cross-border e-commerce was still in its infancy, and the transaction volume was “a handful.” Now, the place has been transformed and has become a completely different scene.
In 2025, Yiwu’s cross-border e-commerce transaction volume reached 167.964 billion yuan, an increase of 19.89% over the previous year; the annual cross-border e-commerce import volume has jumped from “tens of millions” to “hundred million”, becoming the city with the largest cross-border e-commerce import volume in the country.
According to incomplete statistics, there are nearly 300,000 entrepreneurs engaged in cross-border e-commerce and its upstream and downstream industrial chains in Yiwu, and their products are sold in more than 200 countries and regions around the world.
“General Secretary Xi pointed out that Yiwu’s small commodities have broken into a large market and become a big industry, forming the ‘Yiwu Development Experience’, which is a successful practice in developing county economies based on local conditions. The growth path of our cross-border e-commerce is the most vivid footnote to this sentence.” Xu Yan said that the take-off of Yiwu’s cross-border e-commerce is by no means accidental, but is based on Yiwu’s unique advantages of low-quality small commodities and a complete supply chain.
In Xu Yan’s eyes, Yiwu has a complete small commodity supply chain and e-commerce ecology, allowing entrepreneurs to open online stores with just an ID card; the honest and inclusive business environment here and the “no disturbance” style of government services make entrepreneurs feel at ease.
In addition, as a pilot city for the “Four Ports” linkage in Zhejiang, Yiwu’s efficient, convenient and global logistics network has opened up the “last mile” for cross-border products to go overseas, allowing products to quickly reach the world.
“In Yiwu, the success rate of young people’s entrepreneurship ranks among the top in the country.” Xu Yan said that as a national cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone, it is time for Yiwu to develop the cross-border e-commerce industry according to local conditions.
Xu Yan said that focusing on the important instructions of General Secretary Xi to “explore a path of high-quality development that is consistent with each country’s reality and better serve and integrate into the overall development of the country”, next, they will continue to promote innovation and upgrading of business formats through self-built platforms, “the old leads the new, the big leads the small” and other methods.
“This year, we plan to hold 200 cross-border e-commerce activities in Yiwu, train tens of thousands of entrepreneurs for free, and continue to cultivate a large number of cross-border e-commerce professionals for Yiwu.” Xu Yan said that they will also play the role of bridge link in the association and organize more member companies
The industry actively goes global, driving specialty products from all over the country to go global, allowing “Yiwu development experience” to bear fruit on a larger scale, allowing Yiwu to better serve and integrate into the overall development of the country, and continue to write more development legends of “inexplicable, making things out of nothing, and turning stones into gold”.
