Illustration: Tang Tengfei/GT

　　A freight train loaded with small commodities recently departed the customs-supervised zone of the Yiwu (Suxi) International Hub Port, local business media outlets reported. The departure brought cumulative throughput at the hub past 100,000 standard containers. At first glance, the figure is unremarkable. Yet as a concrete data point from China"s small-commodities trading center, it offers a useful lens for understanding how the country"s foreign trade is evolving at the operational level - where logistics decisions increasingly influence trade performance.

　　Yiwu is one of the world"s largest small-commodities trading and manufacturing hubs, located in East China"s Zhejiang Province. Its scale and diversity have led some analysts to treat the city as a barometer of China"s broader foreign trade. In the first 10 months of 2025, Yiwu"s total trade exceeded 701 billion yuan ($100.4 billion), up 25.2 percent year-on-year and surpassing the threshold of 700 billion yuan for the first time. Amid global trade uncertainty, this double-digit growth underscores the continued activity and resilience of China"s foreign trade.

　　Over the past year, logistics networks in and around Yiwu have undergone steady development. Facilities such as the Yiwu (Suxi) International Hub Port suggest that the local infrastructure is increasingly capable of handling higher container volumes. While incremental, these improvements provide a tangible lens through which to observe operational level adjustments in small-commodity trade.

　　According to information from the Ministry of Transport of China, the Yiwu (Suxi) International Hub Port opened on June 27, 2025. The freight hub links Ningbo-Zhoushan Port, the world"s No.1 seaport by cargo throughput, with Yiwu, a major center for trade in small commodities.