Merchants from East China's Zhejiang Province have been to the
Middle East to seek business opportunities, even though the Iraq
War has not ended.
Sources said that several hundred private entrepreneurs from
Zhejiang have visited countries around Iraq, such as Iran, Saudi
Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
A
textile businessman, who refused to be named, said: "The early bird
catches the worm. We believe that the rebuilding of Iraq will
definitely require a great deal of textile products."
Other merchants expressed their enthusiasm about making a profit in
Iraq.
One said: "We don't want to be late. Of course, there will be some
dangers and difficulties but the competition will be really
sharp."
The confidence of the merchants came from their successful
experience during the rebuilding of Afghanistan last year.
"Compared with Afghanistan, Iraq has much more potential and a
larger market," one entrepreneur said.
The business people went to the Middle East to counteract the bad
effects of the Iraq War on their export business.
In
Zhejiang, many presidents of export-orientated enterprises have
been racking their brains over problems such as blocked export
channels, increased ocean shipping cost and decreases in
orders.
The city of Shaoxing exported products worth US$1.4 billion last
year and one-third of the goods went to the Middle East. However,
the city's total export value for January this year was US$80
million lower than the same month last year, down by almost half.
The figure was US$95 million in February, but the situation was
still difficult.
Liu Zhouxi, director of the Wenzhou Foreign Trade and Economic
Bureau, said: "The Middle East is the fifth-biggest export market
for Wenzhou.
"Last year, the city exported some US$150 million of goods to the
United Arab Emirates alone, up 90.21 per cent over 2001.
Originally, we were planning to further expand our exports to the
Middle East this year but now we have nothing to do but wait for
things to get better by themselves," he said.
Liu added: "We see that the war has only done a limited amount of
harm to our exports. That is good. But we would still like to warn
our enterprises here to take a close look at their business with
the war-hit area in order to avoid unnecessary losses."
In
Yiwu in central Zhejiang, the city's international freight
transportation centre said 155 containers were sent to the Middle
East in January this year. However, the figure fell to 20 in
March.
One expert, who refused to be named, said: "The war has caused
pretty large economic losses to the city because all the freight
liners to the Middle East have made detours, greatly increasing the
transportation cost."
An
official from a local enterprise, who also refused to be named,
said: "We have not received any orders from Iraq since this
February."
Lu
Hua, an official from the Yiwu municipal government, said: "We used
to have many Middle Eastern businessmen working in the city. But
now, most of them have gone back to their countries."
(China Daily April 15, 2003)