With the approach of China's National Day on October 1, Yiwu, a small city in east China's Zhejiang Province, which is known as China's biggest fair for small commodities, has seen a sharp increase in Chinese national flag production and sales, the website Zjol.com.cn reported on Tuesday.
Flag production and sales have picked up considerably since this year marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
Jinli, a local company that specializes in flag production and sales, has already sold nearly 200,000 book-sized national flags and tens of thousands of larger ones, said Lu Zhuyuan, the company's general manager.
Zheng Jie, the manager of Senmao, another flag manufacturer, said his company can produce 30,000 national flags each day. But this year's demand has far exceeded output so that their company employees must work overtime.
Besides local orders, merchants in Yiwu have received more overseas orders than before. These orders have increased by more than 10 percent this year, Lu Zhuyuan said. It is believed that the demand is soaring because overseas Chinese will hold various celebrations to mark China's 60th birthday, for which the national flag is indispensable.
