Trains give new impetus to Yiwu's economic growth

Yiwu, a small county in East China's Zhejiang province, called "the world's supermarket" for its global-scale wholesale market for small commodities, is taking the advantage of the nation's Belt and Road Initiative to reshape itself as a "pearl of the Silk Road", transforming itself from a previous export-oriented city into a global trade center.

"For Yiwu, YXE trains serve not only as a broader logistics channel, but also offer a platform for global trade," says Zhu Yi, the vice-director of the Office of Reform in the Yiwu city government.

The Yiwu-Xinjiang-Europe train service, which made its maiden journey from Yiwu to Madrid in Spain in 2014, now travels along nine international routes to over 30 countries.