The Rise and Development of Yiwu's Small-Commodities Market

The daily commodities market at Huqingmen was a typical street market. When it grew to between six and seven hundred stalls, traffic became choked along the Huqingmen section of the road, and the stalls were forced to extend along the old Hang[zhou]-Jin[hua] Road. With crude facilities and with their temporary stalls lined up alongside one another like teeth on a comb or scales on a fish's back, the traders were sweltering in summer and freezing in winter. They were soaked by the rain and bitten by the wind. The conditions were unspeakably harsh. With the market spilling onto the road, traffic congestion was most inconvenient for vehicles and people coming and going in both directions. As the market spilled along the street, the clamor from various circles in society demanding the setting up of specialized markets became more and more intense. On April 23, 1984, the principal leaders of the county party committee and government and I, who was director of the county government office, held a meeting of leaders in the industrial and commercial administrative management and urban construction departments specifically to study the issue of setting up the Yiwu small-commodities specialized market. After a comparative analysis, we finally decided that the site for the second-generation market would be Taizu Tianfan near the Zhe-Gan railway line. It would cover an area of eighteen >i>mu>/i> and have places for eighteen hundred permanent stalls. I would be in charge, and the bureau of industry and commerce would deal with the details.