KUNMING -Development continues on a mammoth market center in Southwest China's Yunnan province though it is already one of the nation's largest distributing centers of small commodities.

The Luosiwan International Trading Center, which occupies 800 hectares in Kunming, the provincial capital, has completed its first and second stages of construction, and the third stage is under way.

"Since the first construction stage ended in December 2009, our trading center has attracted 17,000 small-commodities wholesalers and has achieved an annual trading volume of 40 billion yuan ($6.25 billion)," said Xue Jin'gen, deputy general manager of the Yunnan Zhonghao Real Estate Co Ltd, the developer of the trading center.

"With the addition of the 15,000 wholesalers who just started business in September, we expect to increase the overall trade volume by 50 percent this year," Xue said.

Venders are selling more than 2,000 kinds of small commodities - such as clothing, plastic ware and ornaments - in the five-story labyrinthine shopping center.

"My toy export business was based in Fujian before I came to Yunnan in 2008. One of the most obvious advantages of this site is that it never has a slow season," said Lang Chang'an, a toy trader in the market.

"For example, April is considered a slow month for the domestic toy market, but it happens to be the Songkran Festival, so I can sell dozens of water pistols," he said.

Long buys toys from plants in the southeast coastal areas and sells them to foreign traders in the Luosiwan market, which he says "offers a better chance to attracting foreign guests".

The trading center has 300,000 visitors a day, about 30 percent of them from foreign countries, according to its management office.

"The major cross-border traders are from Southeast Asian countries, such as Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. Even Dubai wholesalers would prefer trading here to centers in Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces, because it's only a four-hour flight to Kunming from Dubai, approximately one-third the time to Shanghai," said Xue.

Xue was born and raised in Yiwu, Zhejiang province, which for decades was known as the largest manufacturing and distributing center of small commodities in the country.

Xue said they have introduced development methods from Yiyu in the trading center, but simultaneously are trying to improve on them.

In mid-September, media reported that shoddy cotton produced in Yiwu was sold to new college students in Nanjing, Jiangsu province.

"That's not likely happen in our market, because we have stricter market supervision," Xue said. "If we find any fake goods at a store, we'll shut it immediately."

"The goods here are as good as those I saw when I traveled to Thailand, but the price is a little higher than there," Souphauady, a Vietnamese consumer, said in a shop selling Thai goods in the trading center.

"I come here with a friend to find some ornaments to decorate his hotel, and what attracts us most is the quality of the products here."

According to Lu Li, the shop owner, many clients from South China and Southeast Asian countries like Thailand elements in their interior decoration.

"The store is more like a showroom, because some customers prefer seeing the product with their own eyes before placing an order," Lu said.

China Daily

(China Daily 09/30/2011 page16)