China’s ‘Christmas village’ exports joy to the world

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Europe

In Chinese megacities, Christmas is a Western holiday that gives locals another opportunity to wine, dine and shop. But for one small Chinese city, Christmas is a chance to bring home additional income.

Yiwu in east China’s Zhejiang Province is the largest producer of Christmas decorations in the world, meeting up to 60 percent of global demand, and employing thousands of locals.

From twinkling plastic Christmas trees to polychrome socks imprinted with Santa, and headbands with elk horns, Yiwu International Trade Market, one of the several mega wholesale complexes in the city, produces festive decors that add joy to the world.

The market complex houses more than 60,000 stalls, providing over 400,000 kinds of Christmas products in the four million-square-meter area. Yiwu International Trade Market is so big that it is known as “China's Christmas Village.”

The city is by far the world’s largest trading hub of Christmas commodities, home to more than 600 factories.

Yiwu’s Christmas productions have contributed significantly to the city’s economy. The manufacturing industry and trade currently make up over 95 percent of the city’s GDP. This year, Yiwu also ranked seventh among China's top 100 county-level cities with the strongest economies, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

But to get here, Yiwu locals have worked hard, contributing their sweat and tears.

Many locals start Christmas production during the summer months. It’s between June and July that workers start making snowflakes, artificial Christmas trees and other accessories in a bid to satisfy global export orders.

“Except for the Spring Festival, we make Christmas trees every day,” Reng Guoan, general manager of the Sinte An Christmas Tree Factory, told Al Jazeera, adding that most of the one million Christmas trees they produce every year are sold in the United States.

He further noted that while people in the US like plastic conifer trees wrapped with flaring LEDs, Australians prefer traditional-style trees or natural ones.

As millions visit local Christmas markets and sort out gifts ahead of the festival, locals in Yiwu are busy working, sparing no efforts to step up their efficiency. It’s just weeks before Christmas when their months of work are put on display in the wholesale booths to attract potential buyers, in addition to those regular buyers who come in hordes for their annual supplies.

In order to meet the demand, workers in these factories pull off 12-hour-plus shifts, six days a week, earning up to 300 US dollars every month.

“I get more pay for more work,” 65-year-old Wang, who gets paid eight cents for bunching the entangled polychrome tinsel into a cardboard box, told the Doha-based international television channel.

And as people celebrate Christmas around the world, thousands of miles away, the job of these ordinary workers in Yiwu will have contributed to making the festivities merrier.

(Written by Cai Mengxiao)

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