Small commodities brave the "big world". In the first four months, the value of exported goods through procurement and trade in the Guangzhou Customs district market increased by 77% (see chart)

The picture shows customs officers conducting market research on the export of pre packaged food in the market procurement and trade expansion zone. Photo by Guan Yue

According to Guangzhou Customs, in the first four months of this year, Guangzhou Customs exported 5.83 billion yuan (RMB, the same below) through market procurement trade, a year-on-year increase of 77.1%. Among them, Guangzhou's exports amounted to 5.64 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 98.6%.

Entering the Zhonggang Leather Goods City located in Baiyun District, Guangzhou, the flexible shuttle of freight carts, the ubiquitous live streaming of goods, and the busy and orderly negotiation sound of bilingual switching appear. Many foreign merchants are selecting the latest styles of bags and suitcases in the original brand zone... On May 19th, a batch of backpacks and suitcases worth 83000 yuan were successfully declared for export and exported to Africa through market procurement trade.

Guangzhou Zhonggangtong Import and Export Trading Co., Ltd., located on the seventh floor of Zhonggang Leather Goods City, is a company dedicated to providing "one-stop" foreign trade services for small and medium-sized enterprise merchants. With over a hundred cooperative customers, the company has changed its previous "store guarding and waiting for customers" model by integrating advantageous products, building an online and offline "integrated" display platform, and expanding order sources in multiple dimensions.

The demand for holiday consumption, summer renewal, and the "spillover effect" of the Canton Fair have driven the growth of market exports. Market merchants are mainly family factory type individual businesses that integrate production and sales, with little experience in foreign trade and high participation costs. Customs has targeted the cultivation of foreign comprehensive service enterprises, further expanding the dividends of new business forms, and helping more "single small goods and miscellaneous" "" hundred goods "in the market to go global." Tan Minling, manager of Guangzhou Zhonggangtong Import and Export Trading Co., Ltd., introduced that in the first four months of this year, the company exported goods worth over 70 million yuan through market procurement trade.

With the advantages of simple declaration, convenient customs clearance, value-added tax exemption and non refundable, and flexible foreign exchange collection, market procurement trade has built a compliant export "fast lane" for small and medium-sized enterprise merchants, empowering Guangzhou's advantageous industrial clusters to iterate and upgrade. Taking the cosmetics industry as an example, as one of the first pilot markets in China to purchase and export cosmetics, Guangzhou Customs will promote the implementation of the first batch of market procurement and export cosmetics business in the customs area in August 2025, driving the expansion of market procurement trade and the stacking of "Meibo City" foreign trade functions. The surrounding logistics, testing, and customs declaration service industry chains will cluster and develop, forming a new industrial ecology that connects the entire chain of "production circulation export". As of May 19th, Guangzhou Customs has exported cosmetics worth over 38 million yuan through market procurement trade.

Guangzhou has characteristic industrial clusters such as clothing and apparel, beauty and daily chemical products, luggage and leather goods, food and beverage, etc. In order to continuously stimulate the potential of industrial development, Guangzhou Customs has effectively combined industrial advantages with regulatory innovation through the "industry+market procurement" model. Currently, the Guangzhou Customs district has formed a "multi-point flowering" pattern of 2 market procurement and trade pilot areas (Guangzhou, Foshan) and 19 market procurement and trade cluster area expansion pilot markets.

"In the first four months of this year, the market procurement trade had a strong momentum of development, with an average of more than 150 customs declarations per day. The export commodities covered shoes and boots, motor vehicle accessories, bags, lamps, clothing, etc., which were mainly sold to more than 150 countries and regions, such as Malaysia, India, Thailand, etc. The export value of countries jointly constructing the" the Belt and Road "accounted for more than 70% of the total value of goods. Among them, emerging markets such as Africa showed a bright performance. The value of goods exported to Africa, Latin America, and ASEAN by means of market procurement trade increased by nearly 1.7 times, 62.8%, and 30.6% year on year respectively." Xie Shudong, head of Liwan Customs' market procurement supervision section, introduced.

Next, Guangzhou Customs will focus on the transformation and upgrading of professional markets and the development of characteristic industries, continuously innovate supervision and service paths, optimize the "Guangzhou model" of market procurement and trade, and assist in the "Guangzhou goods industry", injecting new momentum into the high-quality development of foreign trade. (Guan Yue/Text)