At Shang Yabing’s Chinese knitwear factory, where racks of scarves bear the national teams’ logos from Ireland to Tanzania, tariff concerns are affecting World Cup merchandise orders.
Before the United States, Mexico, and Canada take on the next summer’s football tournament, which is being hosted by the United States, Yiwu, Chinese export hubs would typically already be flooded with World Cup orders.
However, international buyers are reevaluate their options before placing orders with businesses like Shang’s Yiwu Wells Knitting Product due to the rollercoaster ride of a trade war between Washington and Beijing.
When AFP visited his busy workplaces, Shang was tasked with ensuring that rows of coworkers finished a long list of sports-themed accessories.
According to Shang, “We’ve been in this industry for more than 10 years, and we’ve produced World Cup-related merchandise for almost every tournament.”
He continued, “We’ve secured some smaller orders this year, but the smaller orders that were previously on hold haven’t yet been fulfilled… this is probably due to the US tariffs.”
On Thursday, workers’ workstations were surrounded by colorful crates that were overflowing with colorful goods.
One worker ironed green and yellow lengths of fabric emblazoned with the word “Australian” onto some workers’ sewing machines to attach fringe trims to the ends of scarves.
Although the two countries have reached a temporary truce, they have until November to avoid paying triple-digit tariffs on one another’s goods. However, they continue to battle over semiconductors and TikTok.
With less than nine months until the World Cup, Shang claimed the company was still waiting for clients to approve significant orders totaling a million pieces.
READ ALSO: US Ends Tariff Exemption for Small Packages Globally Shipped.
Lack of clarity
Soccer balls and flags were relatively quiet along Yiwu’s sprawling International Trade City, one of the largest wholesale markets in the world, when foreign buyers rushed in during peak times.
From flag-printed sunglasses to miniature football cleats hanging on keychains, vendors displayed everything.
We saw a significant influx of orders by the time the previous World Cup was over, according to Daisy Dai, a seller of printed soccer balls, AFP.
Customers are stifling her this year, she claimed.
Dai’s clientele was once comprised of American customers, but “a number of large brands stopped ordering because there was no clarity on tariffs,” according to reports from the company.
Zhou Yanjuan, a seller of flags and souvenirs with World Cup themes, told AFP that her exports had slowed.
After all, Zhou said, “We’re not selling necessities.”
She maintained that “things will gradually improve going forward.”
According to Zhou, “everyone is probably anticipating the downward adjustment of (tariffs).
That might ease things up for us, he said.
Source: Channels TV
Leave a Reply