Sources said that several hundred private entrepreneurs from Zhejiang have visited countries around Iraq, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

A textile businessman, who refused to be named, said: "The early bird catches the worm. We believe that the rebuilding of Iraq will definitely require a great deal of textile products."

Other merchants expressed their enthusiasm about making a profit in Iraq.

One said: "We don't want to be late. Of course, there will be some dangers and difficulties but the competition will be really sharp."

The confidence of the merchants came from their successful experience during the rebuilding of Afghanistan last year.

"Compared with Afghanistan, Iraq has much more potential and a larger market," one entrepreneur said.

The business people went to the Middle East to counteract the bad effects of the Iraq War on their export business.

In Zhejiang, many presidents of export-orientated enterprises have been racking their brains over problems such as blocked export channels, increased ocean shipping cost and decreases in orders.

The city of Shaoxing exported products worth US$1.4 billion last year and one-third of the goods went to the Middle East. However, the city's total export value for January this year was US$80 million lower than the same month last year, down by almost half. The figure was US$95 million in February, but the situation was still difficult.

Liu Zhouxi, director of the Wenzhou Foreign Trade and Economic Bureau, said: "The Middle East is the fifth-biggest export market for Wenzhou.

"Last year, the city exported some US$150 million of goods to the United Arab Emirates alone, up 90.21 per cent over 2001. Originally, we were planning to further expand our exports to the Middle East this year but now we have nothing to do but wait for things to get better by themselves," he said.

Liu added: "We see that the war has only done a limited amount of harm to our exports. That is good. But we would still like to warn our enterprises here to take a close look at their business with the war-hit area in order to avoid unnecessary losses."

In Yiwu in central Zhejiang, the city's international freight transportation centre said 155 containers were sent to the Middle East in January this year. However, the figure fell to 20 in March.

One expert, who refused to be named, said: "The war has caused pretty large economic losses to the city because all the freight liners to the Middle East have made detours, greatly increasing the transportation cost."

An official from a local enterprise, who also refused to be named, said: "We have not received any orders from Iraq since this February."

Lu Hua, an official from the Yiwu municipal government, said: "We used to have many Middle Eastern businessmen working in the city. But now, most of them have gone back to their countries."

(China Daily April 15, 2003)