The so-called “world’s factory” may finally no longer be a source for products as cheap as they are today.
After a prolonged time of boosting demands by making production costs more competitive than its rivals, prices of “Made in China” goods could be on the verge of rising, even as global demand remains tepid.
Bloombergreports that Chinese manufacturers are beginning to consider price hikes as a way to recoup lost margins, after prices and production costs appear to have hit a new floor. Manufacturers interviewed by Bloomberg at various Chinese trade fairs have expressed a uniform sentiment of seeking possibilities to increase their prices to make up for rising labor and material costs, sometimes in order to survive in their respective industries.
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The anticipated price hike by Chinese exporters could affect economies importing a large amount of goods from the country, ranging from Australia, where 23% of all imports are from China, to Japan, which imports a quarter of all its imported goods from China. But whether this move would fuel inflation in the global economy, which has been running slow in recent years, remains to be seen.