Wholesale exodus as Beijing traders seek better future

Amid a massive plan to integrate the development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei cluster, the capital’s major wholesale markets are being relocated out of town to ease traffic jams and other problems created by a too-crowded city.

Among the most wellknown markets moving out of Beijing are the Xinfadi Market and Dahongmen Clothing Market in the Fengtai district. Xinfadi, a wholesaler of agricultural goods such as vegetables, fruits and cooking oil, has linked itself to the Internet and opened a Hebei branch, while shops at Dahongmen are being relocated to Hebei and Tianjin.

Market goes online

Xinfadi provides 90 percent of the annual food supplies to Beijing residents, including vegetables, fruit, poultry, staple foods and other ingredients. Xinfadi’s branch in Gaobeidian, Hebei province, was created to grade, process, package and store fruits and vegetables such as bananas, apples and onions.

The first of three sections of the new market started operations in October. When the other two sections are completed, the market will have the capacity to supply the capital with fruits and vegetables for 15 days, and could stabilize supply in the case of emergencies.

The market will provide more than 300,000 jobs for Hebei residents and those who have moved to the province from Beijing.

Xinfadi has opened shops on jd.com and taobao.com, the country’s most popular online shopping sites. In addition, the market has set up its own online shopping site xfdsx.com, which sells fresh products such as fruit and seafood.

Xu Peng, the website’s CEO, said the site has received about 100,000 orders each month since it opened in October. “We are conducting campaigns to promote the website and we hope more orders will come,” he said.

The operation has the potential to reduce annual vehicle trips to and from the capital by 10 million, said Zhang Yuelin, the market’s general manager.

Relocation in process

Dahongmen Clothing Market, located between the Fourth Ring Road and Third Ring Road in south Beijing, is the largest garment distribu- tion center in North China. After decades of development, the market has an annual trade volume of more than 30 billion yuan and a strong business circle that attracts tens of thousands of wholesalers and retailers.

The guideline for the integrated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area, promulgated in March by the country’s top leadership, plans for an orderly relocation of noncapital functions away from Beijing. Regional logistics centers and wholesale markets are among the noncapital functions to be moved to neighboring cities in Hebei and Tianjin.

We are conducting campaigns to promote the website and we hope more orders will come.”

Xu Peng, CEO of Xinfadi’s online shopping website

As of December, Dahongmen has moved more than 5,900 shops from 14 submarkets that traded clothes, shoes and other commodities. By the end of 2017, another 31 submarkets are to be shut down and employees are to be relocated to Hebei and Tianjin, according to the Dahongmen Relocation Office. Land emptied by the relocation will be used as parks.

Waiting in hope

In the city center of Hebei’s Langfang, a clothing wholesale market that opened a year ago, features thousands of shops that were shifted from the Beijing markets.

“The past 10 months have seen our business change from brisk to languishing,” said a clothing retailer surnamed Du who rented four shops in the new market, attracted by preferential policies including an initial three years rent-free.

The flow of customers in Langfang is much lower than in Beijing, because Langfang’s population is much smaller and wholesalers across the country are still buying clothes from the remaining wholesale markets in Beijing, said Feng Tao, a government official in Langfang.