Livestreaming Business: Popular social networking mode revives China's jewelry industry

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Now turn to livestreaming. The popular online broadcast mode is sweeping across China. What it brings is not just fun, but also numerous business opportunities. CGTN's Yang Jinghao shows us how it's paying off in spades for the jewelry business.

Another busy night at a popular market near the China-Myanmar border.

People are selling jewelry in a fashionable way – livestreaming.

Sun Qiying is one of the middlemen here touting various jade pieces for retailers, and then bargaining for potential online buyers. And the commissions he gets really add up.

SUN QIYING JEWELRY LIVESTREAMER "I choose to be a livestreamer because I love Internet stuff. It's a promising industry that makes me feel excited and energetic every day."

A city in southwestern China's Yunnan Province, Ruili shares a long border with the world's major jade supplier – Myanmar.

In the mid-1990s, it arose as one of the nation's largest jade-trading hubs. However, the market started shrinking about five years ago.

YANG JINGHAO RUILI, YUNNAN "Livestreaming, undoubtedly, is sweeping across China as a popular form of social networking. Now it has also injected new vitality into the ever thriving jewelry industry in this border city."

The Jiegao Yucheng market is a major jewelry trading center in the city. It gathers thousands of livestreaming hosts who showcase the dazzling valuables on different platforms, such as e-commerce giant Taobao.

Most of the business owners have witnessed the changes the new technology has brought to the once gloomy market.

WANG JINGUI JEWELRY RETAILER "I think it works a lot better than the traditional business mode. We're in an Internet age, there are numerous viewers on online platforms. I used to sell goods worth some 200 to 300 thousand yuan at the booth each month. With the new channel, now the volume can reach more than 1 million yuan."

In the first quarter of this year, trade volume through livestreaming in the Yucheng market alone totaled 1.06 billion yuan, or about 160 million US dollars.

With the influx of more jewelry owners and livestreamers, regulating the heated market is important, and also urgent.

LI RUYUN, E-COMMERCE MANAGER JIEGAO YUCHENG INDUSTRIAL LTD "We adopt multiple management measures. For example, we've set up an online patrolling team to monitor any counterfeit products and any verbal misconduct from the streamers. Anyone in violation of the regulations will be punished."

Industry reports say China has the largest livestreaming market in the world.

Today, the novelty is reshaping different business sectors across the country, and also changing the lives of millions of people like Sun, who are passionate and ambitious about what they do.

YJH, CGTN, Ruili, Yunnan Province.