The city of Yiwu signed an Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) strategic cooperation agreement with Alibaba to speed up Yiwu trading industries' digital transformation on Wednesday. Photo: Courtesy of Alibaba

Yiwu, one of the top choices among overseas traders to source small commodities in China, is seeking new trade channels in partnership with domestic e-commerce giant Alibaba to boost online trade. 

The city in East China's Zhejiang Province, known as the nation's small commodity capital, is trying to shift to an online model as the traditional brick-and-mortar structure is weighed down by weak growth. 

On Wednesday evening, the city of Yiwu signed an Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) strategic cooperation agreement with Alibaba to speed up Yiwu trading industries' digital transformation. 

Under the eWTP program, the Yiwu city government and Alibaba will work together and explore new trade rules to improve digital infrastructure, such as digital payments and digital customs clearing. 

Many Yiwu traders have already turned to online trading. Zhang Xingang, who exports sports products, told the Global Times Wednesday that his company's business grew much faster after he shifted from physical retailing to e-commerce. Now, he is hoping that the delivery process can be shorter and easier, something he hopes to achieve via the eWTP program. 

Wang Jinghua, general manager of the Yiwu Babyshow Maternal Co, which exports baby maternal and infant products, talked about problems when he traded online with customers from some Belt and Road Initiative economies. For example, his company once received an order of $200,000 from a customer from Nigeria, but because of restrictions in the traditional banking payment system, the money had to be remitted from Nigeria to China over a two-week period and only $10,000 could be sent each time. With the eWTP program, such overseas trading conditions can be expected to improve, Alibaba noted. 

Yiwu's efforts to improve rules for online trading come at a time when the digital economy is providing strong impetus for China's growth. According to a report on China's digital construction, the digital economy reached about 31 trillion yuan ($4.51 trillion) in 2018, accounting for 34.8 percent of GDP. Statistics on Alibaba's international platform showed that sales of the Yiwu region via the platform grew by 117 percent year-on-year in fiscal 2019. 

In comparison, overall exports from Yiwu stood at 81.92 billion yuan in the first four months this year, up by 5.9 percent on a yearly basis.