Even though the national soccer team did not make it to the World Cup, there was a special "Chinese team" that showed remarkable consistency in the World Cup. This team is constructed from soccer, trophies, jerseys and other elements, it is our familiar Chinese "small commodities team". According to the Yiwu Sporting Goods Association, this year Yiwu manufacturing industry in the World Cup peripheral commodities market share of up to a staggering 70%, won the global fans enthusiastic pursuit.
Looking back on previous World Cups, by the soccer, trophies and jerseys composed of China's "small commodities team" as netizens said: "China has not appeared on the green field, but never absent from the World Cup exciting."
Xu Yan, president of the Yiwu Cross-Border E-commerce Association, shared a set of remarkable data: during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, exports from Yiwu Customs reached $65.54 million; at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, the figure soared to $160 million; and in 2018, in the first four months alone, Yiwu's exports to Russia exceeded 1 billion yuan.
This year, the Yiwu Sporting Goods Association expects products made in Yiwu to take up almost 70 percent of the entire World Cup peripheral goods market, from flags of the World Cup's top 32 countries to uplifting horns and whistles, and from soccer balls to jerseys and scarves to decorations and pillows for the Hercules Cup, according to Xinhua.
Yiwu Customs statistics show that China's small commodities are going global at an amazing speed: "In August this year, Yiwu exported 3.82 billion yuan of sporting goods and 9.66 billion yuan of toys. Among them, Brazil's exports reached 7.58 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 56.7%; Argentina's exports amounted to 1.39 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 67.2%; Spain's exports were as high as 4.29 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 95.8%."
