中国貿易会社はユーロをドルより好む

Facing the double-barreled threat of a falling dollar and weakening American demand, some Chinese exporters are starting to ask European customers to pay in euros.

Others are trying to increase domestic sales. This, in a nation whose economic juggernaut was built on exports.

Michael Probst / AP

Drastic times call for drastic measures. The dollar’s fall against China’s currency has been accelerating — it is down 4 percent so far this year, after dropping 7 percent last year. That has left businesses across China nursing losses and trying to figure out how to raise prices for overseas buyers, Chinese executives and sales representatives said in interviews here at the Canton Trade Fair. The fair runs through Wednesday.

Ma Lin Ping, the general manager of Taizhou City Qizhou Industry, said that his company had lost $43,000 on a single deal last year because of the dollar’s tumble against China’s currency, known as the yuan or renminbi.

The company agreed at the end of 2006 to send 16 shipping containers of collapsible wood houses for use in gardens and at the beach. When the company finally completed the deal at the start of this year, the payment was in dollars that had lost nearly a tenth of their value in yuan.

Since the start of this year, “I quote prices in euros to all my European clients,” Mr. Ma said, adding that the company was also starting to make products for the Chinese market.

Mr. Ma’s company already sells 70 percent of its goods to Europe. Companies that sell mostly to the United States have not yet tried to set prices in euros.

Instead, Chen Mang, a manager at a musical instrument exporter, said his company now quoted dollar prices that were valid only for two or three months. That limits exposure to declines in the dollar over longer periods of time.

Making matters worse for many Chinese companies, American buyers have become tough negotiators as the American economy has slowed. “They’re just extremely sensitive to any price adjustment I make,” said Wang Ming Guang, a sales manager at a company that exports salt and pepper shakers and spice racks.