A Syrian businessman (right) asks a Yiwu merchant about a sleeping bag. [Photo/zgyww.cn]

Yiwu merchants in China are rushing to aid Turkiye in its efforts to recover from a devastating earthquake that hit the country on Feb 6.

The earthquake has prompted a quick response from Yiwu's merchants, who are now working around the clock to supply urgently needed supplies to the affected areas. 

Zhu Yuelai, a merchant at Yiwu International Trade Market Area 2, shipped the first 500 sets of cotton tents to Kahramanmaras, Turkiye on Feb 12 after communicating with Ma Chunguo, director of Yiwu Chunxuan Trading Co, who is currently in Georgia.

Ma said his three customers in Istanbul wanted to purchase a total of 5,000 sets of cotton tents to be donated to the Kahramanmaras provincial government for disaster relief.

A worker makes cotton tents for Turkish buyers. [Photo/zgyww.cn]

With limited time to respond, Ma immediately mobilized all available resources to purchase tents from the local market. However, due to the specific need for cotton tents, there was a limited supply available in the Yiwu market. Nevertheless, the merchants pulled together, providing all available stock for the donation effort. Working together, they were able to provide the necessary 500 sets of cotton tents, which were transported to Shanghai Pudong International Airport, where they were then flown to Istanbul via Hong Kong free of charge.

For the remaining 4,500 tents, Ma approached Zhu, who had previously developed a range of outdoor tents that would meet the requirements. Zhu has agreed to take on the additional order, increasing production capacity by 80 percent to accommodate the request. Furthermore, he has agreed to sell the tents at cost to help support Turkiye in this time of need.