The Arab armani business suits World Rediscovers China

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The Arab World Rediscovers ChinaPublished: 20 May 2009 17:42:40 PST<p class="authorInfor"]Author: Ben Simpfendorfer <br /]</p]<P]HONG KONG -- Below is the first of four excerpts from "The New Silk Road," by Ben Simpfendorfer, reproduced with the permission of Palgrave Macmillan. </P]<ul class=narrow]More From Forbes.com: In Pictures: Billionaire Breakups In Pictures: Billionaire Heiresses To Watch In Pictures: Billionaire Clusters In Pictures: Millionaires Who Will Become Billionaires In Pictures: Bailout Billionaires <P]Yiwu is a small city by Chinese standards. It has fewer than a million people and lies in the shadow of its wealthy neighbors, Shanghai and Wenzhou, to its north. But Yiwu is special. It claims the world's largest wholesale market for consumer goods and is a Mecca for foreign traders. I had heard about the market from a Syrian trader, having asked him if there were many Arab traders in the city. He laughed and replied, "Not many Arab traders. All Arab traders are in Yiwu." Intrigued, I decided to find out for myself. It was winter when I arrived and the city was gripped by a chill wind. I hustled out of the small airport into the warmth of a taxi. We sped along a newly built freeway to the city's outskirts. From the outside, the exhibition hall looks like a large American mall. But, from the inside, it looks like a riotous collision of every retail shop, city market, and roadside stall in the world.</P]<P]It was the Arab traders who first discovered Yiwu shortly after September 2001. These traders had found it increasingly difficult to travel to America due to visa restrictions. There were anecdotal stories of traders detained at customs when their names mistakenly matched those on a "terror watch list." The number of Arabs traveling to the United States stood at over 250,000 in 2000. By 2007, the figure had fallen to 170,000. The average American household might feel safer knowing that Arab visitors are less likely to visit Atlanta or Chicago. But the world has changed. Arab traders might have stayed at home when faced with visa restrictions; today, they travel to Yiwu, China.</P]<P]China was a timely alternative. The country entered the World Trade Organization in December 2001. Its exports of consumer goods were rocketing at 30 percent annual growth. North Asian manufacturers were also outsourcing huge amounts of production to mainland China. But the real masterstroke was Beijing's unofficial decision to relax visa restrictions around the same time as the events of September 2001. There was no explicit change in policy, but Beijing was increasingly eager to attract foreign investors and foreign dollars. The Chinese embassy in Egypt claims to issue visas to Egyptian nationals overnight, whereas it takes the average Egyptian eighteen days to apply and receive an American visa. Indeed, most Arab traders I spoke claimed to have received their visas in less than twenty-four hours. China is open for business.</P]<P]The results of this are most evident in Yiwu where Arab traders are a common sight on the city's streets. The city had just three Arabic restaurants in 2004. But the number jumped to nearly twenty by 2008. No other city in China, including Beijing and Shanghai, could match the figure. In this small Chinese coastal city a trader can eat anything from Lebanese tabouli to Egyptian koshari. I spoke with one of the restaurant owners, "We opened one of the first Arabic restaurants in the city," he said. "But it's all changed since then." He pulled on his cigarette, "So many Arabs have turned up in the past few years. It's unbelievable. The number of Arabic restaurants in this street has tripled in the past year. But there are still more Arab traders than restaurants, so it's good for business. I'm not complaining."</P]外汇保证金 Waterproof socks 太陽光発電 草原旅游 外汇保证金交易