Speaking their language: How Chinese merchants are winning the Middle East
Hongqiao Market is a traditional shopping hub frequently visited by foreign tourists in Beijing
IN THE bustling atmosphere of haggling at Beijing’s Hongqiao Market, the Arabic words ahlan (welcome) and shukran (thank you) can be heard interspersed amongst the lively bargaining.
Hongqiao Market is a traditional shopping hub frequently visited by foreign tourists in Beijing. Before the pandemic, most foreign shoppers were from Europe and the US, with fewer Middle Eastern customers. Almost none of the vendors could speak Arabic.
As China eased its visa policies to boost domestic consumption in response to US tariffs, more buyers from the Middle East began arriving. Consequently, English mixed with Arabic or Persian has slowly become the standard language combination for Hongqiao merchants hoping to draw Middle Eastern customers.
Noticeable increase in Arab customers
On the first floor of Hongqiao Market, Shi, a sales assistant specialising in bags, picked up some Arabic phrases in the process of bargaining prices with Middle Eastern customers.
She told Lianhe Zaobao that there has been a noticeable increase in Arab customers in the past two years. Though most are able to communicate in English, “if you can say a few words in their language, you quickly become friends and they become repeat customers”.
Arabic has become a business strategy for Chinese merchants to attract Middle Eastern clients amid the China-US trade war. In Yiwu, Zhejiang, known as the “world’s supermarket” and a hub for Middle Eastern traders, Arabic has become essential learning for merchants to counteract the impact of the trade war.
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According to Chinese media reports, Yiwu International Trade City organised its first free Arabic language training in March this year. Every morning, hundreds of merchants eager to do business with the Middle East gathered at a practice spot before opening their shops to learn trade-related Arabic phrases from a teacher. This same foreign language practice spot has provided English training for merchants since it was set up 19 years ago.
Irwin Education is one of the larger language training institutions locally in Yiwu. Yuan Yuan, who heads the training admissions department, noted that there were many Middle Eastern traders in Yiwu, and the demand for Arabic courses has always been high. The institution offers Arabic classes six days a week, attracting students across various industries, including salespersons, factory workers and retail assistants.
Growing trade between China and the Middle East
In recent years, Middle Eastern countries have sought to reduce reliance on oil exports and accelerate economic transformation, while China has been expanding export diversification to mitigate the risks of the China-US trade war. The economies of China and Middle Eastern countries are highly complementary, which has led to increasingly close economic and trade exchanges.
The trade volume between China and the Middle East increased from less than US$170 billion in 2008 to over US$270 billion in 2018, reaching US$477.4 billion in 2023.
China primarily exports mechanical and electrical products, clothing and textiles, automobiles and electronic products to the Middle East, while the Middle East exports oil, natural gas and other energy resources to China.
Ye Dawei: Selling protective gear to booming Middle East
At Yiwu International Trade City, merchant Ye Dawei, who specialises in protective gear, has identified business opportunities from the ongoing industrialisation and urbanisation in Middle Eastern countries.
Ye said when interviewed that some Middle Eastern countries are undergoing extensive construction, with infrastructure projects booming in transportation, communication, electricity and housing, creating a substantial demand for protective gear.
Although Middle Eastern countries have relatively small populations and economies, their strict labour protection laws and regulations create a strong demand for protective gear, making them an important market despite their size. Ye said: “If employers do not provide necessary protective gear for their workers, they would face penalties. This ensures a strong demand for labour protection products.”
Ye’s range of protective gear, which includes protective clothing, safety helmets, protective goggles and noise-cancelling earplugs, are now sold in several Middle Eastern countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan.
First ever Arabic annual report released
The Middle Eastern market attracts not only individual merchants like Ye from Yiwu, it is also one of the emerging markets actively explored by state-owned listed companies.
In June 2022, Yiwu International Trade City opened its first overseas branch in Dubai, UAE. This year, its stock market annual report summary for 2024 was released for the first time in Arabic, which marked the first-ever Arabic annual report for China’s A-shares, evidently aimed at attracting investors from the Arab region.
The Middle East has emerged as a primary destination for Chinese companies’ global expansion, with over 15,000 enterprises in the UAE alone, according to Jiang Lanlan of the Tianjin Chamber of Commerce. Amid China’s domestic economic slowdown and rising competition, the region offers a vital new growth avenue.
Jiang noted many success stories of Chinese companies in the UAE, which have encouraged more businesses to explore opportunities there. Chinese brands are now widespread – for instance, BYD has opened over six showrooms, and Chinese cars are common on the roads. Pop Mart’s blind box series is also wildly popular, with fans queuing overnight to buy them.
An Changwen: e-commerce in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is China’s largest trading partner in the Middle East. In 2018, when the Donald Trump administration launched the trade war with China, some Chinese firms began looking towards emerging markets.
In that year, An Chengwen, who had spent a decade working in Saudi Arabia, co-founded the cross-border e-commerce company ET-Global, focusing on Saudi and Middle Eastern markets. He observed that Saudi Arabia’s e-commerce sector was just beginning to boom, driven by high Internet penetration and a youthful population.
Leveraging China’s extensive e-commerce experience and strong supply chains, An’s company aimed to connect Saudi and Middle Eastern consumers with quality Chinese products. ET-Global established transit warehouses in Guangzhou, Hangzhou and Yiwu, along with branch offices and overseas warehouses in Dubai, Riyadh and Jeddah – the Riyadh facility alone spans over 50,000 square metres.
In his view, more Chinese cross-border e-commerce companies are joining the competition in Saudi’s e-commerce sector. “Competition is fierce, but Saudi e-commerce remains a blue ocean. Currently, local delivery fees are too high, payment processes are not quite smooth, and mobile payments are unavailable. Overall, e-commerce still makes up a much smaller share of retail compared to China.”
Gulf states looking for alternatives
Chai Shaojin, professor at the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Sharjah, UAE, pointed out in an interview that economic and trade exchanges between Middle Eastern countries and China have become increasingly active not only due to strong economic complementarities; geopolitical factors were a key factor as well.
He said that the trade uncertainty between Middle Eastern countries and the US caused by President Trump’s tariff war has led these countries to prefer doing business with China, in turn strengthening economic and trade exchanges.
Chai added that the Lebanon electronic device explosions in 2024 increased concerns about the safety of European supply chains in Middle Eastern Arab countries, prompting people to seek better alternatives in China.
He felt that economic and trade exchanges between China and Middle Eastern countries are on the rise, with significant potential for cooperation. However, in hi-tech areas, Gulf countries could remain deeply tied to US interests. This could potentially reduce purchases of hi-tech products – such as chips – from China.
This article, translated by James Loo, was first published on ThinkChina, an English-language digital magazine under Lianhe Zaobao.
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