China Daily: “China is now losing an increasing number of export orders to other emerging countries because of rising costs at home. That’s driving the government to consider supportive measures including tax rebates and reduced transportation fees, a commerce official said on Saturday during an investment and trade expo held in Changsha, Hunan province.
“Rising costs of labor and land as well as enhanced environment protection criteria has reduced the competitive edge of Chinese exporters,” said Wang Shouwen, director of the department of foreign trade at the Ministry of Commerce. Chinese labor-intensive exports, including textile, apparel and light industrial products, increased rapidly in such traditional markets as the US, the EU and Japan before 2010. But the first four months of 2012 saw Chinas textile and apparel exports to Japan expand only slightly, by about 7 percent year-on-year, while Japanese imports from other emerging countries surged by more than 40 percent in the same period, Wang said. “Overseas buyers strategy, called China plus one, also contributed to the shifting away of Chinese exporting order. China remained the main supplier for overseas buyers but one alternative procurement source in other emerging countries is established to compare the cost with China. “Further rising costs at home will drive buyers to rely more and more on their plus-one countries,” the director said.
via China seeks export recovery|Economy|chinadaily.com.cn.
Compounding worries about the Greek economy, recessions across many Euro countries, low growth in the US and slowing growth in India, comes the bad news that Chinese exports are not as high as it used to be. Bad news all round.
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