Who is the "Heart of Zhejiang"? Jinhua and Yiwu

If you fold a map of Zhejiang in half along the four corners, the intersection of the two folds is Jinhua City, a city in central Zhejiang. Since ancient times, it has been a hub for merchants and logistics, and was called the "Heart of Zhejiang" by Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty. To this day, when introducing the local area to the outside world, Jinhua people often mention the "Heart of Zhejiang".

From the perspective of the market, Yiwu, which is under the jurisdiction of Jinhua, seems to be more worthy of being called the "heart of Zhejiang". It is a "city built on the market". Recently, when reporters visited Yiwu Station, many people lamented that "Yiwu Station is much busier than Jinhua Station" and "It is the Yiwu of the world after all".

Recently, Yiwu has further solidified its "Heart of Zhejiang". On September 6, the Hangzhou-Wenzhou high-speed railway was officially put into operation, starting from Tonglu East Station in Hangzhou, connecting with Hangzhou West Station through the existing Huhang section of the Hefei-Hangzhou high-speed railway, passing through Jinhua, Taizhou, and Wenzhou, and entering Wenzhou North Station, and extending to Wenzhou South Station through the existing Hangzhou-Shenzhen Railway. The main line is 276 kilometers long with a designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour, allowing Hengdian, Pan'an, Pujiang and Xianju to enter the "high-speed rail era". Hangzhou West to Wenzhou North can be reached in 87 minutes at the fastest, further improving Zhejiang Province's "1-hour traffic circle" and the intercity railway network in the Yangtze River Delta.

Schematic diagram of the Hangzhou-Wenzhou high-speed railway line.

But its significance is far more than just "the travel time from Hangzhou to Wenzhou is shortened to 1 hour". In Yiwu, the Hangzhou-Wenzhou high-speed railway is directly connected to the Shanghai-Kunming high-speed railway, which is the main artery of my country's high-speed railways, and can realize north, south, east and west. Even in Wenzhou, where Wenzhou merchants are all over the world, there are more than 25,000 market operators in Yiwu International Trade City who put their light industrial products on the "world supermarket" and sell them to the world. After the opening of the Hangzhou-Wenzhou high-speed railway, the travel time between Wenzhou and Yiwu was shortened from more than 100 minutes to about half an hour, shortening the distance between Wenzhou and the "world".

With the help of the Hangzhou-Wenzhou high-speed railway, Yiwu has become a hub city. This high-speed railway line can be used as a thread to understand Yiwu's future development. By following it, we can better understand the "inexplicable", "out of nothing" and "midas" development experience behind Yiwu's becoming a "world supermarket" that "buys from the world and sells to the world".

"Why is Yiwu Station being renovated again?" Business travelers traveling to Yiwu often ask this question.

The reason is that the number of passengers sent by Yiwu Station has been increasing sharply. Fu Qixing, deputy stationmaster of Yiwu Railway Station, said: "Moderately advanced planning still cannot keep up with the rapid development of Yiwu." Data shows that in 1978, the number of passengers sent by Yiwu Station was 526,400; in 2016, the number of passengers sent reached 10.58 million, breaking the 10 million mark for the first time; this summer, the number of passengers sent by Yiwu Station exceeded 2.1 million, an increase of more than 12% year-on-year.

But looking back at the more distant history, one of Yiwu's labels is inconvenient transportation. In Zhejiang, Yiwu is relatively remote and adjacent to mountainous areas. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, farmers in Yiwu traveled far and wide, exchanging their own brown sugar for chicken feathers as land fertilizer to solve their livelihood problems. At that time, people communicated with the outside world on foot or by rowing small boats. Although the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway later traversed the area, it was not convenient. In 1972, Zhang Letian, now the director and professor of the Center for Contemporary Chinese Social Life Materials at Fudan University, took a train from his hometown of Haining to Yiwu. The train was very slow along the way. In his impression, Yiwu Station was a small station with only a few houses. "Seven lights on one road, and one horn ringing the whole city" was the real situation in Yiwu City at that time.

"Without the railway, there would be no small commodity market." Yiwu people understand the significance and role of Yiwu Station. In 1984, the Yiwu County Party Committee and the County Government established the strategy of "promoting commerce and building the county". The Yiwu Small Commodity Market, located at No. 12 Xinmalu, which was put into use on December 6 of that year, is not far from Yiwu Station. The market has more than 1,800 stalls and sells more than 3,000 varieties of products. At that time, Yiwu Station was just a small third-class station on the original Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway, with few trains, slow speed, and few places to go.

The clock goes back to 1992. In just 10 years, as a product of reform and opening up, Yiwu Small Commodity Market has undergone 3 relocations and 6 expansions. In the previous year, its transaction volume exceeded 1 billion yuan, ranking first among the top ten markets in China. In May 1992, the fourth generation of Yiwu Small Commodity Market officially opened for business. It coincided with the "National Urban Commodity Development Seminar" held in Yiwu. Mayors of more than 50 cities gathered here. Mayors from all regions who attended the seminar all sighed: Yiwu's speed is no less than Shenzhen's speed.

In 1992, Fu Qixing, a native of Yiwu, returned to his hometown to work after graduating from a university in Nanchang, Jiangxi. He was assigned to Yiwu Railway Station, where the old station building had been expanded and became a two-story building. At that time, as Yiwu became known as the "largest city in China", merchants from all over the country flocked to the station, making tickets in short supply, aisles crowded with people, people lying under seats, and even a toilet on the train crammed with more than a dozen people.

In 2001, China officially joined the WTO. Less than a year later, in October 2002, Yiwu International Trade City officially opened, usually referred to as the first phase of the International Trade City. In November of the same year, Yiwu Station was upgraded to a first-class station. At that time, Yiwu bosses were used to doing domestic trade, and foreign trade was still a new thing. At the beginning of Yiwu's integration with the world, there was controversy over whether the International Trade City should be quickly expanded to the second phase, but by 2005, the International Trade City had been built to the third phase. That year, Yiwu's international trade volume exceeded domestic trade for the first time, and the Yiwu market officially transformed from "selling nationwide" to "selling globally."

At that time, the passenger flow of Yiwu Station increased sharply. According to a set of data, the passenger revenue of Yiwu Station in 2005 reached 242 million yuan, 17 times that of 1985. At that time, Yiwu Station could not meet the passenger demand. Fu Qixing witnessed the "relocation" of Yiwu Station. The electrification of Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway, which started in 2003, was officially completed in 2006. On June 16, the new Yiwu Station, a first-class station with a station area more than doubled, was put into use.

To outsiders, the "high overlap" between the construction period of the New Yiwu Station and the construction and commissioning time of the first three phases of the International Trade City seems to be a coincidence, but this just shows that the two are "highly correlated". At that time, some experts bluntly stated that Yiwu, a "county-level city" at the administrative level, could not keep up with the pace of Yiwu's economic and social development. There is also a vivid analogy: a child grows too fast, and the clothes are too small, so "a big piece of clothing must be put on the fast-growing child". This "child" is Yiwu, and Yiwu urgently needs to "put on big clothes". The New Yiwu Station is one of the pieces of cloth that make up this "big clothes".

In order to build the new Yiwu Station, the "invisible hand" of the market pushed the "visible hand" of the government. Specifically, Yiwu took the initiative to change the "station relocation" plan to the "line relocation" plan: the original plan was to electrify the original railway line and relocate the railway station to free up development space in the old city. But soon, the Yiwu Municipal Government discovered that if this plan was adopted, the existing drawbacks of noise, dust pollution, safety hazards, etc. passing through the city would still exist. What is even more puzzling is that "the railway station has been moved around but is still the size of the old station", so how can it meet the growing passenger demand of Yiwu International Trade City. In the end, the line relocation plan for the Yiwu section was approved-the railway line was moved outside the city, and a larger station was built.

Although the project was delayed for half a year due to the modification of the plan, Yiwu not only completed the renovation project as scheduled, but also achieved a win-win situation for the railway and the local government. From the perspective of the railway, the new Yiwu Station has become the second largest passenger station in Zhejiang, and has reserved development space for building a railway hub. At the same time, Yiwu has separated passengers and freight, and the newly built Yiwu West Station has assumed the freight function. From the perspective of the local government, the new site of the railway station in the "station relocation" plan was selected near the fifth district of Yiwu International Trade City. After changing to "line relocation", a large space was freed up for the development of Yiwu urban area. Lou Linlu, former deputy director of the Yiwu Municipal People's Congress Standing Committee and the first commander-in-chief of the Yiwu Railway Construction Command, recalled that the railway department was very satisfied with Yiwu's work and arranged a starting train for Yiwu as soon as the railway was opened. On April 18, 2007, a pair of Harmony EMU trains started from Yiwu Station to Shanghai South Station, and Yiwu became the only county-level city in the country to start the EMU train at that time.

Photo, Hangzhou, September 6, 2024, the Hangzhou-Wenzhou high-speed railway train enters Yiwu Station.

"The people push the government and the government leads the people." This "mutual promotion and advancement" relationship is the secret of Yiwu's success. In the process of building a hub city, Yiwu has also continued this tradition.

In 2006, the same year Yiwu Station was put into use, Zhejiang Province delegated 131 economic and social management powers to Yiwu at one time, and Yiwu began to get rid of the constraints of the county-level "small clothes" system and transportation level. The effect was immediate, and Yiwu's GDP grew by an average of more than 12% annually in the following two years.

"The hub was not built in one day," said Yiwu locals. The reason behind this is the continuous increase in train lines in Yiwu over the years. In 2014, the Shanghai-Kunming high-speed railway was opened, and Yiwu Station became a station for both high-speed and conventional railways, making the already saturated station even more cramped. According to Fu Qixing's observation, in the era of conventional railways, Yiwu Station had a passenger flow of several thousand people a day, but now, Yiwu Station sends more than 30,000 passengers a day.

When the Hangzhou-Wenzhou high-speed railway was confirmed to be introduced to Yiwu Station and the elevated station building of Yiwu Station was approved for construction, the station building of Yiwu Station, which had been in use for only 16 years, began to be demolished at the end of 2022. "Yiwu Station is the first elevated station building built on a running high-speed railway in the country." Fu Qixing added that with such a large passenger flow, the station had to handle passenger services while under construction, facing the "pain" of construction, which naturally gave passengers a poor experience.

The renovated Yiwu Station welcomes customers as usual. Photo by Ren Junmeng

The same is true for freight transport. If the opening of Yiwu West Station in 2006 was considered "creating something out of nothing", the opening of the "Yiwu-Xinjiang-Europe" China-Europe Express in 2014 was "turning stones into gold". At that time, Yiwu West Station released the station space originally used for transporting coal and steel, thus having the ability to send entire trains of freight cars to Europe.

Last year, British media were surprised to find that the road sign of a train station in the east suburbs of London clearly read "Yiwu 12,000km", which is the longest transportation route of the station. It is a China-Europe express line launched by Yiwu in January 2017. In 2024, Yiwu will add a new "trans-Caspian Sea and Black Sea" Romania line, and the number of China-Europe express lines will be expanded to 20.

Data from Yiwu West Station shows that the China-Europe Express will carry nearly 130,000 TEUs in 2023, with revenue from the business exceeding 600 million yuan during the same period. "It is almost Christmas time, and the cargo is slowly increasing," said Liu Dong, duty director of Yiwu West Station. Yiwu West Station is now operating at full capacity, sending an average of 3.6 China-Europe Express trains per day, in addition to operating sea-rail combined transport trains.

Containers being loaded at Yiwu West Station. Photo by Ren Junmeng

"Yiwu West Station is the station that has been expanded the most times on the Shanghai-Kunming Railway," said Liu Dong. Its current size is about three times that of when it was put into use in 2006. During this period, a dedicated line for China-Europe trains, storage yards, warehouses, etc. were built, and several surrounding villages were relocated. In the future, Yiwu's logistics supporting areas are expected to continue to expand.

Sheng Yafang, the owner of Golden Leaf Insoles, believes that Yiwu's logistics has been a point of attraction since she came to Yiwu from her hometown Lanxi to open a store in 1997. "Yiwu's logistics radiates across the country. Our own goods are transported from the Lanxi factory to Yiwu for assembly, and can be shipped out quickly, arriving at most of the source cities across the country the next day." After years of hard work, Sheng Yafang is now the vice president of the Yiwu China Commodity City Chamber of Commerce, and her life has drawn an upward curve in Yiwu.

"The development of railway transportation is closely linked to the development of Yiwu city and Yiwu people," Zhang Letian added.

Many people do not understand why Yiwu has become a "world supermarket" in just 40 years? How did it become a hub city out of nothing? But if we consider Yiwu's market and transportation together, we can easily see the resonance between the two.

On the one hand, the market forces Yiwu to develop. Take the changes in the trains in Yiwu as an example. Whether it is the relocation, expansion and renovation of the passenger station or the creation of a hub, or the establishment of a separate freight station or even the formation of a special operation station for China-Europe trains and sea-rail transport, behind it is the objective demand and dividend spillover for transportation as Yiwu's small commodities have entered the big market and become a big industry.

On the other hand, the market is helping Yiwu develop. Whether it is the recently opened Hangzhou-Wenzhou high-speed railway or the nearly 20-year-old Yongjin Expressway, private capital has participated in or controlled the projects. Among them, the Wenzhou-Yiwu section of the first phase of the Hangzhou-Wenzhou high-speed railway project is jointly controlled by the private enterprise Parkson and adopts the "build-own-operate-transfer" operation model. The government transfers all profits during the 30-year operation period. If the profit is not as expected, the government will provide certain feasibility gap subsidies to ensure the stability of private capital income. This move can reduce the government's initial construction investment and allow public utility projects subject to fiscal budgets to be implemented as soon as possible.

The premise for the two to resonate with each other is that Yiwu people are trying their best to constantly look for opportunities outside.

Yiwu people have a catchphrase: "Guests are like dragons. If they don't come, they will suffer." Where do people come from? As early as the 1980s, it was often difficult to get a ticket to Yiwu Station. In order to solve the transportation problem, Xie Gaohua, the "midwife" of Yiwu Small Commodity Market, came forward to find the leaders of Shanghai Petrochemical General Plant for help. In the end, Yiwu County Government, Shanghai Petrochemical General Plant and other three units each provided two buses to form a "Tri-Link Transport Company". The buses went directly from Yiwu Small Commodity Market to Hangzhou, Shanghai and other places. During that period, Hangzhou's highways, Jinhua's railways, Ningbo's ports and Wenzhou's airports all became transportation guarantees for Yiwu people to run markets. When the market was just developing, Yiwu rarely saw foreign merchants. Zhang Letian learned from local research that it was not only inconvenient for foreigners to come, but there was no place to live in Yiwu, so they would live in Hangzhou, Ningbo and even Shanghai after their inspections.

In 2005, in order to facilitate merchants to participate in the China Yiwu International Commodities Fair, Yiwu cooperated with the railway department to apply for the addition of two sleeper cars on the Guangzhou-Yiwu and Shanghai-Yiwu trains. In recent years, Sheng Yafang has noticed that "after each Canton Fair, many customers will go to the market to check out new products, and sometimes even half of the passengers on a high-speed train or a flight are foreign merchants to Yiwu."

Today, Yiwu is as internationalized as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. It is home to more than 2.1 million products in 26 categories, 32 million workers and 2.1 million enterprises, trade with more than 200 countries and regions, and 15,000 foreigners from more than 100 countries and regions around the world. Last year, its export volume exceeded 500 billion yuan. Yiwu has even become the "world food capital" with Turkish, Syrian and Nepalese cuisines.

Yiwu's future is still full of imagination. In 2026, Yiwu Station will become the "Gateway to Yiwu", with a building area of ​​75,000 square meters, 11 platforms and 27 lines, becoming the largest railway station in the country's county-level cities and the second largest in Zhejiang. After the completion of the Hangzhou-Wenzhou connecting line, the Hangzhou-Wenzhou high-speed rail trains can transfer to the Shanghai-Kunming high-speed rail at Yiwu Station and go directly to Hangzhou East Station and Hangzhou South Station. In the future, the two major high-speed railways of Shanghai-Kunming and Hangzhou-Wenzhou, the two major conventional railways of Shanghai-Kunming and Ningbo-Jinhua, and the third and fourth lines of Jinyi will be interconnected and seamlessly transferred at Yiwu Station. Yiwu will also officially become a hub in Zhejiang and even the Yangtze River Delta. In the future, as the sea-rail transport function of Yiwu West Station is moved to Suxi Station of Ningbo-Jinhua Railway, the "Matthew effect" of Yiwu transportation will continue to strengthen.