How does the world supermarket "create something out of nothing"? Experts discuss the development experience and lessons from Yiwu

Ask AI · How Yiwu’s Grassroots Wisdom Achieves the World’s Supermarket?

China News Service Hangzhou, May 7 (Xie Jinyan) From rocking a rattle and walking through alleys, to setting up stalls on the roadside, and then to building a “global buying, selling” “world supermarket,” how does Yiwu, a county-level city in central Zhejiang, continue to write miracles in China’s county economy development? On May 7, at the “Yiwu Development Experience” academic seminar, experts, scholars, Zhejiang business representatives, and those who have experienced Yiwu’s reform and development gathered to explore the core logic and contemporary value of Yiwu’s development.

Seminar scene. Provided by the organizer.

Yiwu does not rely on rivers, does not border the sea, and is not along the border. Over the past 40 years, following the development strategy of “prosper commerce and build the city,” Yiwu has innovated, embraced reform, and opened up, using a small rattle to “shake out” the world’s largest small commodities market.

On site, Feng Aiqian, known as Yiwu’s “first individual business owner,” recalled the famous “County Party Secretary vs. Farmer Woman dispute” in 1982, which marked the “starting point” of Zhejiang Yiwu’s market opening.

“We had no choice but to set up stalls after being forced into it. With five children to support, we were so hard that we had to borrow rice to eat…” Feng Aiqian said she never expected that a “desperate quarrel” would indirectly lead to the opening of Yiwu’s market, nor did she expect that after more than 40 years of development, Yiwu’s market has become the “world supermarket.”

Growing from a resource-scarce agricultural small county to the “world capital of small commodities,” Yiwu’s experience is an experience of development, rooted in practicality, respecting grassroots innovation, and always keeping pace with the times. Currently, at the important stage of the “14th Five-Year Plan” start-up and the transformation of old and new kinetic energy, how to summarize and effectively utilize Yiwu’s development experience? Experts and scholars on site shared their views.

Song Li, member of the Party Leadership Group and Secretary-General of the Zhejiang Federation of Industry and Commerce, said in his speech that the “Yiwu development experience” is a successful example of county-level development emerging from grassroots wisdom of “bartering chicken feathers for sugar.” Its core is “adhering to promoting commerce and building the city, fostering industrial linkage, emphasizing urban-rural coordination, advancing harmonious development, enriching cultural heritage, and striving for proactive government.”

Guo Zhanheng, Deputy Director of the Zhejiang Business Development Research Institute and former Deputy Director of the Zhejiang Provincial Policy Research Office, believes that the biggest highlight of Yiwu’s development experience is respecting the pioneering spirit of the masses, respecting the laws of economic development, and sticking to a single blueprint to the end, with successive administrations continuing the effort. He suggests systematically constructing a theoretical system of Yiwu’s development experience, accelerating the implementation of oral history projects from the perspectives of provinces, cities, and counties, and deeply exploring multiple dimensions such as market operators, enterprises, experts, scholars, and foreign businessmen, to build a solid historical foundation for the theoretical system and promote the nationwide dissemination of Yiwu’s development experience.

“During my visit to Yiwu, two sentences left a deep impression on me: ‘Yiwu market is the rice bowl of the people of Yiwu, and the Yiwu government is the guardian of the Yiwu market.’” Hu Hongwei, Deputy Director of the Zhejiang Business Development Research Institute and author of “Yiwu Experience,” shared that governments should strictly adhere to market economy rules and firmly uphold the rule of law, accurately grasping the boundaries between government and market. He believes that successive Yiwu governments have precisely handled the dialectical relationship between government and market, always aiming to promote market prosperity and maximize people’s interests, which has led to more than 40 years of sustained prosperity and set an example of government-market synergy for the country.

Zhang Xuguang, Vice Chairman of the Zhejiang Business Association’s Academic (Study) Committee and a concurrent professor at Zhejiang University, interprets Yiwu’s development experience from a cultural perspective. He states that the “Six Righteousness Culture,” centered on loyalty, integrity, benevolence, filial piety, chivalry, and trust, injects deep cultural energy into Yiwu’s market development. “Markets are tangible and visible, but culture is intangible and invisible. However, culture determines consciousness, consciousness determines thoughts, and thoughts determine actions. Therefore, in summarizing Yiwu’s development experience, we should also pay attention to the summary of humanistic ideas.”

Xu Minghua, member of the Zhejiang Provincial Government Advisory Committee and former Vice President of the Zhejiang Party School, believes that Yiwu’s development experience should be viewed from the broad perspective of Chinese-style modernization. He states that the fundamental advantage of Yiwu market is cost advantage, but this is not innate; it is based on national strategies, reconstructed through systems, technology, and space. Yiwu’s development also reflects the shift from decentralization to empowerment in central-local relations. “Many places can learn from Yiwu’s experience, actively leveraging national policies to empower local development.”

Chen Shoucang, Chairman of the Zhejiang Business Association’s Academic (Study) Committee and Dean of Zhejiang Business University’s Zhejiang Business Research Institute, states that Yiwu’s development embodies a dialectical approach to managing tangible and intangible, proactive and passive, change and stability. Fundamentally, it is a method rooted in dialectical materialism and historical materialism, an agile application of dialectical, scientific, and systemic thinking, a vivid embodiment of people-centered development philosophy, and a lively microcosm of socialist county-level development practices with Chinese characteristics.

It is reported that this seminar was jointly organized by the Academic (Study) Committee of the Zhejiang Business Association, Zhejiang Business Research Institute, and Zhejiang Business School’s School of Business Administration. (End)