Jordanian businessman Mohanad Shalabi has run Arabic restaurants FOR decades, bringing authentic Arabic cuisine to a coastal eastern Chinese county named Yiwu. When he first arrived, he remembers Yiwu being a small county with few buildings, cars, or people. Since then, he has witnessed Yiwu becoming world-famous for small commodity trade and vibrant free markets. Shalabi said he loves this place for its safe environment, business opportunities, livability and convenience.

President Xi once said that Shalabi is the best example of the Chinese Dream meeting the Arabic Dream. Years later, his business continues to prosper along with the city and he recently moved his restaurant into a three-story building that is closer to Yiwu's International Trade Mart. 

Shalabi has higher expectations for the new venue, hiring new chefs, updating the menu, and improving the service. He said he sought to provide his customers the tastes of their countries and make everyone feel at home. Now in this Arabic restaurant, there are diverse flavors of food, as well as locals and newcomers alike enjoying each other's company, an apt experience for the restaurant's name, Beyti, which means "my home."

With the Belt and Road Initiative now in place, more foreigners are flocking to Yiwu, chasing their business dreams, and crowding Shalabi's restaurant. 

Hamid Dehghani, a frequent patron at Beyti, runs a trade company in the city. He said there were only a dozen Iranian businessmen when he first came, but now he has some 300 counterparts. Hamid said Yiwu had cheap prices, people from across the globe and one of the biggest trade markets in the world, making it a hub for foreign businesses. "Many daily necessities in Iran come from Yiwu," he said. “With newly launched sea routes and rail lines, it’s even easier to send Yiwu goods back to Tehran.”

In Ningbo, another Zhejiang city about 200 kilometers from Yiwu, increasing ties with Central and Eastern European countries within the policy framework has boosted bilateral investment and trade, which has attracted young graduates like Anete Madzina.

She now works with the Latvian government to cooperate and promote Latvian groceries in the Chinese market. For Madzina, her first priority is promoting commerce, but more importantly, people-to-people exchanges. Madzina said she would like to beckon people in Latvia to come to China and vice versa. "I think that this trade in product is just the beginning of political and cultural relationship."