Source: Yiwu sourcing agent Author: Gary Date: 2008-03-28
Mohammed Tohma had never thought of settling down in China one day, a country he had only heard of in tales of Arabian Nights, let alone the marriage' with a Chinese lady without Moslem background. However, trade business gradually pushed this Egyptian to the East.In 1997, Tohma came to Dubai as soon as he graduated from college, where he got his first job-importing from Hong Kong different kinds of products made in China's mainland and then selling to the Arab countries. Business of this kind existed in the Arab World even a very long time ago. More than one thousand and three hundred years ago, there existed an Abbasid Dynasty, stretching from the Iberian Peninsula to the coast of the Caspian Sea.Caliphs of this whole saracenic empire enjoyed Chinese silk and porcelain at that time. If they could find some remnants after their own consumption, they sold them to the Christian aristocrats in the Western Europe at tens of times of the price.In 2002, a Saudi businessman in Guangzhou Fair introduced Yiwu to Tohma, a city seemingly far away to him but a city with endless fairs. At the end of that year, Tohma arrived at Yiwu and settled down. In the following four years, the number of Arabian business and reside in Yiwu permanently, begain to increase rapidly.
Rashid came to Yiwu for the same reason. This 50-year-old Koord was once a Lieutenant Colonel of parachutist serving in the Iraqi Republican Guards, who had been conferred medals because of his outstanding performance in the Iran-Iraq War. However , when the war was over, Rashid lost his way of making a living. From May 2007, he hurried back and forth between Yiwu and Syria every month, selling the China-made products to the refugee camps there.When the Iraq War ended in 2003, over 1.5 million refugees poured into Syria, whose necessary daily consumables were all dependent on the import business of over 1,000 businessmen living in Yiwu. Rashid said,"China-made products are of low price and fine quality. Whatever we need can be made just with a sample."
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