East China's Yiwu City, the world's largest wholesale market for small commodities, registered a one-day record of small commodities export last month, Customs figures showed Thursday.

The Customs at Jinhua, which administers Yiwu, said 3,810 TEU containers of small commodities were exported on April 29, a new record. Yiwu exported 1,423 containers of small commodities daily last year. TEU, or twenty-feet equivalent unit, is the standard measure of container volume.

Li Hongqiang, a manager of Zhejiang China Commodities City Group that publishes the Yiwu small commodities index, said the market for small commodities was recovering from the fluctuation caused by the global financial crisis.

"We are feeling the changes of market. The queues of trucks got shorter for some months last year, and they are as long as before," said a truck driver surnamed Lu in Yiwu.

Yao Xianming, deputy director of the foreign trade and economic cooperation of Yiwu, said the global market demand for daily necessities remained strong despite the financial crisis.

He expected the exports of Yiwu small commodities to continue to increase this month as companies across the world are expected to begin preparing for the Christmas market.

(Xinhua News Agency May 8, 2009)