Three impressive buildings in Ouhai district, Wenzhou are home to the city's "world supermarket", which will open to the public on Sept 24. [Photo/66wz.com]

Residents of Wenzhou, in eastern Zhejiang province will be able to buy international goods at a "world supermarket" from Sept 24.

The commerce department in the city's Ouhai district announced on July 2 that a trading center for imported goods, in a three-building complex, will officially be unveiled in less than three months.

Wenzhou is located at the intersection of the south of Zhejiang, north of Fujian and east of Jiangxi. Officials said that building a distribution center for commodities is a significant strategy for the further opening-up of the city.

Positioned as a hub for the one-stop purchase of imported goods, the new trading center will sell internationally sourced products and commodities and combine online and offline sales channels. Meanwhile, there will be a platform providing services related to storage, logistics, customs clearances, the training of employees and funding for enterprises that have settled there.

Wenzhou has been known as China's powerhouse of private economy. Most of the country's leading import companies are operated by Wenzhou entrepreneurs, which makes the trading center an important initiative for the city.

"Nearly 60 percent of China's imports are dominated by Wenzhou businesspeople according to our survey in cities such as Shanghai, Ningbo and Yiwu," according to  Zhao Zhexia, the man in charge of the trading center in Wenzhou.

However, a shortage of import platforms in the city to date hindered the return of these people in the past, Zhao added.

To attract enterprises run by Wenzhou people, in recent years a slew of policies concerning land, taxes and other subsidies were released in Ouhai, including rent concessions, said Huang Xingxiang, an official from the district's commerce department.

"According to our plan, the trading center will introduce over 300 enterprises and over 30,000 kinds of imported goods in the first three to five years," said Zhao, adding that the value of imports annually was expected to hit $200 million.