Yiwu is a city built on the market. In the report on China's development jointly released by the United Nations, the World Bank, Morgan Stanley and other global authoritative agencies, Yiwu is called the largest global commodities wholesale market. Besides, Yiwu's market has been awarded the title of “Quality-valuing and Credibility-honoring Market”, “Contract Abiding, Trustworthy Enterprise” and “Credit Model Market”, the only one in the country with these titles. The year of 2007 witnessed the total volume of transaction reaching 46.1 billion yuan, including 34.8 billion contributed by China Commodity City, topping the wholesale markets of national daily necessities for successive 17 years.

At present, Yiwu's market has an area of 2.6 million square meters. In the 58,000 booths are more than 40,000 kinds of commodities of 1,900 categories from 43 industries. If one stays at each booth for 3 minutes, he would need one year to visit all booths based on a daily business of 8 hours. The third phase of International Trade City under construction covers a total area of 1.70 million square meters, with an investment of 4 billion yuan, and will be put to use in October, 2008.

The Tourist Shopping Center of Yiwu International Trade City stands out as the distinct, first national AAAA Shopping and Tourist Scenic Area in Yiwu’s tourist industry, with over 10,000 square meters of mega tourist shopping center, thus forming a unique "tourist shopping" brand. In 2007, the number of customers to the market reached 5.156 million, 300,000 of whom were from overseas.

Every day, there are 200,000 businesspeople from all over the country hustling and bustling in Yiwu market; there are over 10,000 oversea traders doing business here daily, mostly for purchase. At present, there are over 500,000 containers departing for 215 countries and regions annually. So far, 1,508 overseas enterprises have been approved to set up branch offices in Yiwu; oversea merchants have opened over 9,000 accounts in Yiwu's banks; the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Gift Procurement Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Carrefour's Asia Headquarter have set up procurement centers in Yiwu's market while developed countries in Europe and North America have become Yiwu's important export market; every year Yiwu holds over 40 exhibitions and fairs.

Yiwu also boasts well-installed international logistic centers and five specialized freight transportation markets, with domestic and international corporate entities in charge of freight transportation amounting to over 600. Of the global top twenty ocean-shipping groups, ten have set up branch offices here. The city provides freight business extending to over 250 middle-and large-sized cities, five railway parcel express trains, and more than twenty flight routes. Yiwu has been designated by Zhejiang Province as one of three key customs clearance construction projects.

The world first wholesale index of daily necessities-“The Yiwu China Commodity Index”, compiled by the Ministry of Commerce, is released every week. The publication of the Index will consolidate and enhance the influence of Yiwu's status of small commodities on the world's market of small commodities, contribute to the clout of the country's markets of small merchandise on the pricing of the world's markets of small commodities, and favorably impact the formatting of pricing mechanism of the globe's small commodities. Moreover, its release will definitely emerge as a significant point of reference for the world's system of business culture.