Chinese merchants have been actively expanding into global markets beyond the United States, achieving notable success even as trade tensions between the world's two largest economies have eased.
China and the U.S. on Monday announced a series of tariff modification measures aimed at easing bilateral trade tensions following a two-day China-U.S. high-level meeting on economic and trade affairs in Geneva. The two sides recognized the importance of their bilateral economic and trade relationship to both countries and the global economy, a joint statement said, noting that both sides emphasized the need for a sustainable, long-term and mutually beneficial economic and trade relationship.
Following the latest turn of events, some U.S. buyers moved quickly to reclaim their contracts with Chinese suppliers, but many were disappointed to learn that the goods had already been allocated to overseas clients.
Hu Chunxia owns an artifact store at the Yiwu International Trade Market, the world's largest wholesale market for small commodities located in the city of Yiwu in east China's Zhejiang Province.
Previously, a batch of crafts worth 300,000 yuan (about 41,626 U.S. dollars) that had been custom-ordered by a U.S. client could not be delivered as planned due to the sharp increase in tariffs. The products were later sold to other markets.
"The client asked me how much stock was left for his order, and I told him that I had already sold all of it. Coincidentally, we had another client from the Middle East, and yet another one from Greece - when they saw the products, they said, 'wow, these are really good'," said Hu.
"The world is vast, and there are still many markets for us to explore. Regions like the Middle East, South America, Europe, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia have actually opened up a whole new world of opportunities for us," said the businesswoman.
Companies in the southern Guangdong Province, a powerhouse of China's economy, also reported increasing orders from various parts of the world.
"We received a few more orders today. We're keeping U.S. market share under 30 percent. In addition, we have more independently developed new products, which make our offerings irreplaceable," said Wang Li, general manager of the Shenzhen Maiqijia Home Furnishing Co., Ltd.
At a bamboo shoot processing company in Le'an County, east China's Jiangxi Province, the manager said they received a purchase order call from a U.S. client just 30 minutes after the release of the China-U.S. joint statement in Geneva. Currently, several production lines are running at full capacity to meet surging demand.
"At the moment, we're unable to meet the U.S. customer's demand for over 8,000 cartons of goods all at once, so we've urgently added another production line. The fact that our product was out of stock (for U.S. customers) for over a month shows that our U.S. customers find it very difficult to source bamboo shoots with such high quality and competitive pricing outside of China," said Chen Zhixiang, general manager of the Jiangxi Guangya Food Co., Ltd.
According to Chen, U.S. companies had reached out multiple times over the past month, even proposing re-export arrangements to continue trade. However, the company declined those offers and is now accelerating its expansion into Europe and other international markets.
"Our products are sold worldwide. In addition to the U.S. market, we have customers in more than 20 EU member states, Japan, South Korea, as well as in Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia, Cambodia, Brunei, Indonesia, and many others. Most of our customers highly recognize our products, and we are confident that we can deliver them to more and more countries and regions," he said.
Chinese sellers confident of boosting export by expanding to more countries
