Chinese goods help Western families weather economic crisis

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-03-05 14:39

SHANGHAI - Demand for cheap, quality household goods appears to be keeping strong -- despite the global economic downturn, say buyers and vendors at the 19th East China Fair in Shanghai.

"Chinese products do exist in a lot of Western homes. a lot of people buy Chinese goods, especially daily necessities like clothing and daily tools," said M. Khemani, a buyer with the UK-based Saturn Agencies Ltd.

The five-day event, which is due to end Thursday, is sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce and is the largest regional commodity fair in China. With 5,312 booths, it attracted more than 3,500 merchants from home and abroad, according to the organizing committee.

Khemani said that the Chinese products were fair-priced. "They are helping American and European families weather the economic crisis."

Despite slowing international trade, the market for necessities was still thriving.

Though the financial crisis was biting into consumption, trade at the fair was better than expected, said Khemani.

Chinese products at the event offered best quality and price, he said. Western families affected by the crisis were more probably than anytime before unable to do without "made-in-China".

"Some categories have even seen exports rise since the crisis, maybe because Western families choose to cook at home to cut spending," said Guo Tengyu, a salesman with Hong Kong Defeng International Company Ltd., a kitchenware firm.

Sun Ruizhe, deputy head of the China Textile Industry Association, said Chinese textile products exported to the United States, Europe and Japan accounted for more than 60 percent of the global demand.

"The economic crisis hasn't lowered Western demand for necessities, so some cheap but high-quality products can get a bigger market share," he said.

According to the China National Light Industry Council, in 2008, China's total export volume of light industrial products was US$309.2 billion, up 14.4 percent year-on-year. The nation remained the world's biggest producer of more than 100 light industrial products, including bicycles, sewing machines, batteries, furniture, lamps and lanterns.

Looking for new-style fabrics for Italy-based Home International Textile S.R.L., Fabrizio Vezzosi said, "Chinese companies are now providing more innovative products, probably due to furious competition and government stimulus. Anyway, it's good for consumers."

Liu Zhouqun, head of foreign trade promotion under the Ningbo Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau, said, "Domestic producers used to only emphasize quality. Now the crisis is helping prompt us to put more stress on innovation, which means we have to produce goods with new ideas, instead of by machine only."

China recorded exports of US$1.429 trillion in 2008, a growth of 17.2 percent on the previous year. But the growth rate was 8.5 percentage points lower than the year-earlier level due to the global economic slowdown.

The government has taken a string of measures to spur foreign sales, such as increasing tax rebates for some exports and encouraging manufacturers to innovate so as to sharpen their competitive edge.