Even before the implementation of the international railway transportation, Yiwu Customs had promulgated the innovation of paperless customs declaration.

"In the past, enterprises had to go through complicated formalities in customs declaration and clearance. Now, instead of having to shuttle between Yiwu and other ports, and between enterprises and customs departments, just a few mouse clicks will do," said Ding Lanfang, who has been engaged in the trade of high-end tableware for almost 20 years.

The paperless reform has remarkably reduced manpower costs for both logistics enterprises and customs departments, while the 24-hour customs clearance mechanism has greatly enhanced efficiency. According to Yiwu Customs, 99 percent of export declaration forms have been automatically examined and approved, and enterprises can be saved 6 million yuan ($960,600) in delivery costs.

"We have the most advanced intelligent monitoring control system and a set of rapid container inspection equipment worth 30 million yuan ($4.8 million), which has cut down the time needed for the inspection of every single container to five minutes," said a Yiwu Customs official.

According to statistics from Yiwu Customs, the number of standard containers shipped to Central Asia countries surged from 52 in 2012 to 618 in 2013.

Online and global

On October 21, 2010, the world's largest small commodity wholesale market launched its official website Yiwubuy.com, and 70,000 brick-and-mortar stores were made available online, ushering in a brand new era of e-commerce for the Yiwu wholesale market.

"More than 5,000 college graduates engaged in e-commerce business are based here. The local government welcomes them to pursue their own career here," Wang Kuiming, Executive Vice Mayor of Yiwu, told Beijing Review.

According to Wang, by the end of April, more than 2 million kinds of commodities had been traded on Yiwubuy.com and the number of total online orders had surpassed 60 million yuan ($9.6 million), with daily page views hitting 1.5 million.

On May 18, the beta version of a global marketing platform also went online, with 700,000 kinds of commodities on offer. So far, it stands as the largest cross-border e-commerce platform in China.

"In September 2013, the local government designated IZP Global to build the platform, which aims to connect stores directly with customers through its big data intelligent classification technology," said Wang.

Yu Jing, Manager of Yiwu Auspicious Import and Export Co. Ltd., has her company located in the Yiwu International Trade Mart. "Businesses here can enjoy comprehensive and trustworthy services without having to venture out the door," said Yu.

She said that not only does she appreciate the series of services provided by the platform, which range from taking pictures for samples to uploading, but also the extensive presence of IZP's operating centers and service teams.

As Wang stated, a total of 18 e-commerce parks have been established or are under construction across Yiwu. And eight of them, which have been operating for more than one year, registered a gross transaction value of 3 billion yuan ($480.03 million) in 2013.

Email us at: yushujun@bjreview.com