Southeast Asian e-commerce giant Shopee launched its regional operation center in Yiwu, Zhejiang province, on June 19.

The center is the first of its kind in China's county-level cities and a milestone in Yiwu's global strategy.

"Yiwu is the world's distribution center and procurement base for small commodities. We value the city's strength when it comes to overseas purchases," said Liu Jianghong, cross-border business manager of Shopee.

He said that Shopee is headquartered in Southeast Asia and boasts 600 million potential customers. The partnership between Yiwu and Shopee will enable sellers on the mainland to explore the Southeast Asian market.

The two parties first signed a cooperation agreement in 2018. To date, Shopee has built warehouses, incubation bases, and an operation center in Yiwu, while the city has become Shopee's largest logistics hub in East China.

Their partnership is expected to introduce Yiwu's over 600,000 markets entities to overseas counterparts, with e-commerce offering an easy platform to enable international expansion.