Import trade

In 2014, Zhou and his partners organized a street fair to sell products brought back by overseas Chinese, which received an overwhelmingly positive response from locals and visitors. This success convinced them of the viability of the imported commodities business.

Zhou believes that overseas Chinese have a competitive advantage in industries that need to draw on both overseas and domestic resources.

"They have lived abroad for long periods and understand foreign cultures, which helps them to introduce foreign products to Chinese customers. They have a closer connection with foreign suppliers, which helps them secure firsthand sources of goods," he said.

Thanks to over 100,000 Qingtian natives living in Spain, the county has become an important import hub for Spanish ham, or jamon.

"In 2018 when China allowed the import of jamon in its domestic market, I imported the first leg of jamon to China," Ruan Aigao, a Qingtianese living in Spain, said in an interview with Qingtian Media Group.

Sun Chengyan, director of the development center for the overseas Chinese economic and cultural cooperation experimental zone, said: "The jamon import market in Qingtian represents more than 80 percent of the entire national market share in China, with almost all of the country's imported jamon flowing through Qingtian."

In 2023, jamon ranked as the second biggest import product in Qingtian after red wine, with sales reaching approximately 200 million yuan ($28 million), data from Qingtian Imported Commodity City showed.

The commodity center, which was founded in 2015, hosts 277 enterprises, offering over 100,000 types of imported goods from more than 70 countries and regions.

Cumulative sales exceed 17 billion yuan, earning it the nickname the "World Supermarket".