"Guidelines for Sustainable Development of Cities and Communities and Management and Implementation of Sustainable Development in Small Towns" (GB/T 43155-2023, hereinafter referred to as the "Guidelines") is the first national standard formulated by the Yiwu Municipal People's Government, summarizing and promoting advanced practices in the management and implementation of sustainable development in Yiwu's small towns. It provides the organizational environment for sustainable development management of small towns and offers a sustainable development management system for small towns, including planning, task determination, performance evaluation and continuous improvement, which provides important technical support for promoting sustainable urban development and meeting the people's growing demand for a better life. As one of the main drafters of the standard, Leverage CEO Mr. Qu Weifeng participated in the entire process from drafting to release of this standard.

The sustainable development of small towns is a key link in driving rural revitalization and promoting urban-rural integrated development. It is also the only way to consolidate the foundation of grassroots social governance and promote modernization of governance. To this end, in May 2021, the Yiwu Municipal People's Government took the lead and formed a national standard drafting working group in conjunction with 30 units including Zhejiang Zhejiang Merchants Standardization Service Co., Ltd. After sufficient research and extensive solicitation of opinions, based on the "14th Five-Year Plan for New Urbanization Implementation Plan", and combined with the work requirements of beautiful towns construction in Zhejiang Province and quality improvement of small towns (wei towns) in Guangdong Province, as well as the actual needs of small towns across the country such as Gansu, Henan, Fujian, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, etc., formulated the "Guidelines" to ensure implementation and operability.

The "Guidelines" are applicable to small town management agencies and relevant parties in carrying out sustainable development management and implementation. They are of great significance for improving the economic benefits of small towns, building common prosperity, improving the ecological environment quality of small towns, implementing the "dual carbon" action, and helping to basically achieve the long-term goal of socialist modernization by 2035.

In recent years, Yiwu has actively explored regional standardization system innovation and practical innovation with cities as the core, carried out administrative management standard construction and social governance standardization actions, actively explored standard formulation and revision work around urban and rural community governance, improved the sustainable development standard system for small towns, and summarized and formed new paths for standards to lead high-quality development in regions and fields. Among them, Suxi Town of Yiwu City's sustainable development practice of "urban integration, industrial integration, urban and rural integration" has been included in the Guidelines's sustainable development practice cases of small and medium-sized towns, which vividly demonstrates that the "Yiwu experience" can be replicated and promoted.

According to statistics, in 2023 alone, Yiwu will undertake the construction and promotion of 1 national standardization pilot project and 5 provincial standardization pilot projects. In recent years, it has led and participated in the revision of 8 international standards, 280 national standards, 286 industry standards, 85 Zhejiang manufacturing standards, and 16 Zhejiang provincial local standards, all of which are among the best in Zhejiang.

A relevant official from the State Administration for Market Regulation said that in the next step, the State Administration for Market Regulation (National Standards Committee) will continue to promote the implementation of various tasks deployed in the "National Standardization Development Outline" around economic and social development and people's livelihood protection, strengthen the supply of national standards in key areas, and accelerate the construction of a standard system to promote high-quality development, help the economy and society achieve high-quality development, and meet people's yearning for a better life.

As of the end of September 2023, China has formulated and released more than 5,400 national standards for consumer goods covering 11 categories and 98 categories of national standards for consumer goods classification. In recent years, the consistency of major consumer goods standards with international standards in 53 specific industry fields in 9 key areas has remained above 95%, and the standard level of major consumer goods in China is basically in line with international standards.