On Nov 30, the Yiwu administrative service center in Yiwu, Zhejiang province and its counterpart in Bazhong's Bazhou district, Sichuan province, started to mutually accept paperwork procedures handled by each other for 65 regular items, such as medical insurance, social securities, professional certificates, and market entity registrations.

The move is part of efforts made by the two localities to strengthen their economic cooperation. Due to these efforts, a person who has moved from Bazhou to Yiwu, or vice versa, no longer has to return to the place of origin to handle the aforementioned administrative procedures.

In 1996, China launched the east-west economic cooperation program, mandating that more prosperous provinces and municipalities, which are mostly coastal regions in East China, lend support to underdeveloped regions, which are mostly located in the western parts of China.

According to the central government's recent arrangement, Zhejiang is now tasked with providing economic assistance to 68 counties (or county-level cities and districts) in Southwest China's Sichuan province.

Yiwu has been paired with Bazhong's Bazhou district.