BEIJING: Export-reliant Chinese companies are slashing prices, moving production abroad, creating new domestic markets and even rebranding goods as they try to survive the escalating trade war with the United States.
"It's impacted all of us exporters ... we include the tariffs in our quotes now," a sales manager at Shaanxi Hengtong Fruit Juice, who gave his surname as Liu, told AFP. "Tilapia has done very well in the US because it's breaded and processed... it's kind of bland. Chinese consumers like their fish fishy," said Even Pay, an agriculture analyst at advisory firm China Policy.
Radio exports to the US were down to just $33 million in the first six months, from $230 million a year before.Some struggling low-end radio manufacturers have been forced into drastic measures such as attempting to dodge US tariffs by swapping customs codes - where a product is incorrectly labelled to evade levies when it arrives in America.Other firms have resorted to transshipment - re-routing their goods via neighbouring Vietnam to pass them off as being made there.
New rules proposed by the trade ministry last month require all"Made-in-Vietnam" labelled goods to be mostly or fully produced in the country or contain a significant share of locally-sourced materials.Some Chinese firms have moved manufacturing abroad to countries like Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia to skirt tariffs.