Source: Yiwu sourcing agent Author: Yama Date: 2008-03-30
According to the statistics released by Iraqi Embassy in China, the Iraqi residing in China totaled from 2,000 to 3,000, of which about 600 to 1,000 lived in Yiwu. Most of those Iraqis entered China after the begining of Iraqi War in 2003. For the most part of the past 300 years, Yiwu was only a peaceful little town in the south of Yangtze River. Due to the inadequate supply of lands, people living here had to go from place place to place among other rich areas in Jiangsu and Zhejiang Province, doing the small business of "chicken feather for sugar " to earn a little more money. Today, Yiwu people buy 500 thousand kinds of small commodities city five and a half kilometers long, where there are over 200 thousand dealers running about 50 thousand booths and sending 400 thousand TEU every day to the whole world.
Yiwu's only mosque was set up only two years ago, which receives over 7,000 people every week now, of whom 60% are overseas Muslims. By contrast, Aitigal Mosque in Kashi, Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region, regarded as the biggest Mosque in China,has only 5,000 to 6,000 people every week in total for service.
In 2000, there were only 260 Muslims in Yiwu, who went to two temporary Islamic service points in the city. One year later, the number of Muslims reached over 400. With the help from Chinese Islamic Association, Yiwu government invited an imam named Ma Chunzhen. More than 20 people attended the first service Ma took. In April 2004, many Middle East businessmen flocked to Yiwu for business opportunities after the Guangzhou Fair. Therefore, the people increased rapidly to over 2,000 in Ma's service. The service place at that time was on the second floor of a fast food restaurant. When the service time arrived, hundreds of people on their knees on the road caught the great attention of passersby.
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