4 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Hard to pivot: why China's exporters struggle to sell at home despite trade war
A Chinese company that exports straws and food packaging materials spent 30 million yuan (US$4.16 million) last year to comply with stricter environmental standards in Western countries. Although the costs to upgrade its production facilities were steep – roughly equivalent to the profits the firm would make selling tens of millions of straws – the potential in the US and European markets seemed to justify the investment.
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And they were right – in theory.
By betting on the growing environmental awareness among Western consumers, Soton Daily Necessities, based in Zhejiang province, went the extra mile – adopting a tech- and capital-intensive strategy to ensure that even a simple straw could be good for the planet.
The only thing the company had failed to plan for was April's trade war, and
the precarious situation it would unleash on unsuspecting exporters.
'Anyone with sound logic would not expect a US president to go to such an extreme,' Soton's deputy president, Mao Bin, told local media in Zhejiang.
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