Wenzhou

Locals do booming business both at home and abroad

By Cong Rong (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-19 07:18

Century Square in downtown Wenzhou.

Business people in Wenzhou have not only contributed to the rapid economic development of their own city since the 1980s, but have also travelled internationally and settled all over the world.

Located about 500km to the south of Shanghai, Wenzhou is a coastal city in southeastern Zhejiang province, with an area of 11,784 sq km and a population of 8 million.

The city was largely ignored by China's central planners and developed slowly during the planned economy period.

In an isolated place with a big population but limited resources, Wenzhou people have cultivated special business shrewdness to make the most of what they have.

China's reform and opening up starting in the late 1970s brought many business opportunities for the city and its people.

Where other booming cities in China relied on foreign investment or government funding to fuel their economies, Wenzhou had to be more self-reliant.

With ambition and diligence, Wenzhou people turned their city into one of China's biggest manufacturers of small scale goods, such as gifts, toys, lighters, razors, spectacles and badges, which are exported around the world.

Over 95 percent of the local economy is private sector. Wenzhou currently has 130,000 private enterprises and 27 national production bases, including "China's Shoes Capital" and "China's Electric Home Appliances Capital."

In the 1980s, when people in China's interior moved towards the coast and people in the north towards the south, people of Wenzhou, went the opposite direction, heading inland towards the underdeveloped areas in north and west China.

"Wenzhou people are known for their entrepreneurship. They are canny business people who can turn their hands to any trade and make it profitable," said Yuan Yaping, a journalist.

"They have no interest in working for someone else. Instead, they often start with small businesses and gradually turn to tailoring or cloth trading, the odd-jobs that people from elsewhere in the country usually look down upon and will not do."

The city has been designated by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization as one of the most vigorous cities in the world.

Zhao Yide, mayor of Wenzhou, said: "Wenzhou is a city full of vigor and passion for entrepreneurship and Wenzhou people have strong aspirations for challenge and success."

"Wenzhou is in a critical period of advancing scientific development and transforming patterns of economic growth," Zhao said.

Today, Wenzhou is a prosperous modern city with a developed transportation network, including expressways, high-speed railways, international airport and ports, making the city easily accessible and more closely connected to the rest of the country.

(China Daily 06/19/2010 page13)