yide road seafood & dried food market, also called haiwei road, is famous “seafood & dried fruit street” in the history of guangzhou. it stretches from haizhu square in the east to haizhu south road in the west. this 1000m-long street is lined with 200 shops and 5 indoor wholesale markets with 1600 varieties of seafood and dried food. its seafood and dried food wholesale business occupies 70% of the total in guangzhou. the month prior to the spring festival is peak period for seafood and its sales amount accounts for 30% of the whole year. yide road is very bustling, what trademen carry or lift with hands, trolley, motorcycle or wagon are all seafood and dried fruit purchases for the spring festival. the market collects non-staple foodstuff and sundry goods from every corner of the country, from australian tiger shark’s fin and dalian sea-ear of the bohai sea at a price of as high as rmb 1000 yuan per 500g to central china vermicelli, south china lotus seed, northwestern citron daylily and southwestern dried tofu at a price of less than 10 yuan…yide road has every delicacies from land and sea that you expect to find, no matter it is high-grade seafood or cheap homely dried foodstuff. yide road has become well-known seafood and dried food specialized street in china.

yide road has favorable geographical position. it faces the pearl river and has convenient water transportation. since the 1930s a seafood-trading district was formed voluntarily. since the reform and open-up yuexiu district government made full use of this advantage and invested rmb 10 million yuan to have established yide road comprehensive market. it is the first that introduces roadside stalls into indoor market in guangzhou, with 3 floors in total: first floor is for dried and fresh foodstuff, salted sea fish, dried mushroom and hair-like seaweed, etc.; second floor is for dried fruit, drink, general merchandise for daily use, stationery and toy; third floor is warehouse of stalls.

in yide road district stand many small hongs and companies, and home-style stores are found everywhere. surprisingly, their volume of transaction is large despite of small scale. it is disclosed by the person in the industry that the transaction volume of this street can reach rmb 1 billion yuan every year. this figure comes out top among foodstuff and grocery specialized streets in china. although every stall in the market is as small as 3 or 4 m2, it is a sample point of company products, and real large bargain is conducted in the warehouse.

all guangzhou residents know that yide is the first choice for cheap seafood. so many shops and stalls constitute hot competition; both quality and price are better than large shops or producing areas. many housewives are frequenters of yide. they often come here to buy high-grade seafood or cheap subsidiary foodstuffs and go back with fruitful results, and the price is comparable. even hong kong housewives often troop to yide to buy seafood and dried fruit, for yide’s goods are fresh, good, and cheaper than those in hong kong, even if with traveling expenses added, and full in variety.

along with prosperity of yide road, it seems too “small”. so the department concerned made a new layout of yide road market. debao exchange plaza is built at the mouth of yide road. it has an underground parking garage with a capacity of several hundred cars. the third floor is market. this kind of development remains the old brand of yide road seafood & dried food market and expands business area as well.

besides seafood and dried foodstuff, yide road has another new attraction in recent years, that is, choice stationery. it is “new star” born from the seafood street. you may ask, why a seafood street sells stationery? it is said that the rise of stationery depends on the flourishing force of seafood and dried foodstuff. the first large stationery market just takes a fancy to the large traffic and convenient transport of this prosperous business district. it has rented out all stalls although not hot when opening.

many choice stationery shops entered the street in 1995 and 1996. this trend was more apparent in 1997. in such year yiyuan choice goods and stationery collection opened in october and rented out 98% of the total over 100 stalls within one month; debao exchange plaza opened, originally decided to deal with dried foodstuffs, and turned to choice stationery, gift, paper and happy event or festival products. look! the bright red lanterns hung high on every stall, plastic pneumatic dragon, hammer, hello kitty, baseball ball, music box, hanging scroll with “diligence”, “friendship”, “lot comes” or other characters, lifelike models of brand car and motorcycle, transparent crystal apple and swan, cute plush toy and lovely animal toy, golden-hair blue-eyed bobby with diversified skirt…too many beautiful things to see. you can also find exquisite pens, pencils, ball pens, pencil boxes with different design, and notebooks with beautiful scenery, star portrait or lyric printed, and many students who are selecting their favorite stationery.

running pearl river is feeding this known “seafood, dried food and choice stationery street” in guangzhou, a historical cultural municipality, and crowded people drive ancient yide road to head for thriving future.