A worker uploads packed goods for export at a warehouse of Baikal Express Co in Yiwu, East China's Zhejiang Province on August 23, 2022. Photo: courtesy of Baikal Express Co

Goods are piled up in warehouses, workers are busy packing and loading packages on trucks, and trucks are lining up to head to railway stations… This is a common picture for traders in Yiwu, the world's small commodity hub, in East China's Zhejiang Province, as the city reopened on Wednesday after a period of epidemic lockdown.

Yiwu reached zero COVID-19 status at the community level for eight consecutive days by Tuesday. Producers, traders and logistics companies worked from the wee hours on Wednesday to ship products as soon as possible.

"Container bookings are very hot," a manager surnamed Yu at Baikal Express Co told the Global Times on Wednesday.

According to Yu, there are mountains of boxes at the warehouse, although the company resumed loading goods on trucks on August 18, when Yiwu ended lockdown.

Baikal Express just delivered four trucks of goods over the weekend, mainly headed for Belarus and Russia. "It takes about 35-45 days by the China-Europe Railway, while it takes 12 days to Moscow by truck," said Yu.

Another Yiwu-based trade company, which resumed work from Sunday when Yiwu fully lifted "static management," said that nine containers were sent on Monday, and 14 were sent on Tuesday.

"About 80 containers will be sent to Ningbo-Zhoushan Port on Wednesday, nearly twice the usual number. Business is expected to return to normal during the week," the company said.

The company is looking for 10 packers who will earn at least 7,000 yuan ($1,020) a month.

The two companies are just an epitome of tens of thousands of businesses in Yiwu that have rapidly resumed work and are ramping up efforts to supply the whole world, since Yiwu is the largest wholesale market of small commodities.

According to Yiwu's commerce bureau on Tuesday, the resumption rate of key foreign trade enterprises has exceeded 90 percent, and the daily export volume declared at customs has recovered to 90 percent. Work and production resumption rate at Yiwu port nearly reached 100 percent, and the cargo circulation between Yiwu and Ningbo-Zhoushan port accelerated.

The quick resumption was also supported by measures from the Yiwu government.

For example, Yiwu logistics firms that deliver more than 2,000 containers during the period from July to the end of this year will be given a subsidy of 60 yuan per container.

Cai Qinliang, secretary-general of the Industry Association of Christmas Supplies in Yiwu, told the Global Times that the overall logistics system is smooth in Yiwu now.

"Almost no Christmas orders have been affected. Major destinations for Yiwu's Christmas products this year are North America, South America, Southeast Asia and Russia," said Cai.

A smooth logistics system is crucial to the stable growth of foreign trade. The latest trade indexes released by the WTO proved that China's shipments through its ports have increased despite a slowdown in global trade.

Global goods trade continued to grow in the second quarter of 2022 but the pace of growth was slower than in the first quarter, and it is likely to remain weak in the second half of the year, the latest WTO Goods Trade Barometer issued on Tuesday showed.

The latest reading of 100.0 coincides exactly with the baseline value of the index, indicating on-trend trade expansion. The forward-looking export orders index (100.1) is on trend but has turned downwards.The main exception is the container shipping index - 103.2 - which has risen firmly above trend as shipments through Chinese ports have increased with the easing of COVID-19 restrictions.

The container shipping index fully reflects the vitality and solid foundation of China's foreign trade, as well as the operational capacity of China's ports in the context of normalized virus management, Bai Ming, deputy director of the international market research institute at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

"We should not be blindly optimistic about foreign trade in the second half of the year. The challenges posed by the pandemic remain grave. But the rapid return to normal operations in major trading hubs such as Yiwu has boosted confidence in foreign trade," said Bai.

Nine of the world's top 20 ports by container throughput are in China. In the first half of 2022, the average time in port of international container ships in China's major ports was 1.79 days, better than the 3.29-day period of port time of 11 other major foreign ports, according to the Shanghai Shipping Exchange.