Perched in front of hundreds of vibrantly coloured backpacks, each bearing the name of a famous football nation, a middle-aged woman from Fujian province worries about the squeeze on her wafer-thin margins.
坐在数百个色彩鲜艳、上面印着某著名足球国家名字的背包前面，一位来自中国福建省的中年妇女担心自己业已微薄的利润遭到进一步挤压。
Just before lunch on the opening day of the third phase of the Canton Fair – a huge trade show held in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province – Ms Lin has secured no orders.
截至第114届广交会(Canton Fair)第三期开幕日午饭前，林女士（化名）没有签订任何订单。广交会是在位于中国南方的广东省省会广州市举办的大型贸易博览会。
“There are few people and they are only looking,” says Ms Lin, who has been forced to double the price of her bags to about $6 since 2011 to compensate for rising labour costs and the stronger Chinese currency.
林女士说：“人流量很少，他们只是在看。”林女士自2011年以来不得不将背包价格上调一倍至6美元左右，以抵消劳动力成本日益上升和人民币升值的影响。
After skipping the fair for a couple of years, Ms Lin returned this year in the hope the 2014 football World Cup would boost demand. But the 4 per cent rise in the renminbi against the dollar during her absence has intensified cost pressures from the double-digit annual wage increases common across Guangdong.
在连续两年缺席广交会之后，林女士参加了今年的广交会，寄望于2014年的世界杯足球赛将会提升需求。但在她缺席广交会的两年间，广东省工资水平每年呈两位数增长，人民币对美元又升值4%，成本压力进一步上升。
“This is a problem and the workers’ salaries are rising too . . . [but] customers insist on the older price,” says Ms Lin, who asks to be called by a pseudonym.
林女士说：“汇率是个问题，而工人们的工资也在上升……（但）客户坚持过去的价格。”
Located in Guangzhou at the heart of the Pearl River Delta – a sprawling web of manufacturing cities that includes Dongguan, Shenzhen and Foshan – the Canton Fair takes place twice a year and allows about 190,000 buyers from more than 200 countries to meet roughly 25,000 Chinese manufacturers.
位于珠江三角洲中心的广州市每年举办两次广交会，有来自逾200个国家的19万买家和大约2.5万家中国制造商参展。珠江三角洲是一个庞大的制造业城市网络，包括东莞、深圳和佛山。
Two hours by train from Hong Kong, the fair occupies 1.1m square metres – the equivalent of 880 Olympic swimming pools – and houses everything from a giant McDonald’s to Cantonese cuisine to a mosque for Muslim visitors.
从香港坐火车去广交会需要两个小时。本届广交会展览面积110万平方米（相当于880个奥运游泳池），里面有各式各样的餐饮——从大型麦当劳(McDonald's)到粤菜以及为穆斯林准备的清真食品。
Along with the other exhibitors at the 114th Canton Fair, which closed yesterday, Ms Lin is sitting at the crossroads of the global economy where weak western – and more recently southeast Asian – demand intersects with rising costs in China. This mix helped spark a surprise fall in Chinese exports in September.
第114届广交会于11月4日闭幕。如今林女士和其他参展商一起处于全球经济的十字路口——西方（以及近期的东南亚）需求疲弱与中国成本日益上升交织在一起。这两种因素在一定程度上导致了今年9月中国出口意外下降。
On top of the stronger Chinese currency, wages in the Pearl River Delta are climbing at double-digit rates each year as factories compete for workers in a tight labour market.
除了人民币升值以外，珠江三角洲的工资水平正以每年两位数的速度增长，原因是劳动力市场紧张，工厂竞相加薪来吸引工人。
Sean Mahon, managing director of an Irish company called Brandwell that owns several accessory brands and has been coming to the Canton Fair for 20 years, says his suppliers charge 20 per cent more each year for the 3,000 products – everything from umbrellas to underwear – that he sources.
爱尔兰公司Brandwell拥有多个饰品品牌，20年来一直参加广交会。董事总经理肖恩•马洪(Sean Mahon)说，他的供应商每年将其采购的3000种产品（从雨伞到内衣）的价格上调20%。
For many of the small manufacturers at the Canton Fair, dealing with the rising renminbi is especially hard because they cannot hedge against currency fluctuation. Glenn Stephens, managing director of a confectionery company in Dongguan that makes mints for Manchester United shops, says the strengthening Chinese currency means “everyone is under pressure”.
对广交会上的许多小制造商来说，应对人民币升值问题尤其困难，因为他们无法对冲汇率的波动。格伦•斯蒂芬斯(Glenn Stephens)是东莞一家为曼联(Manchester United)商店生产薄荷糖的糖果公司的董事总经理。他说，人民币不断升值意味着“所有人都不好过”。
At the opening of the Canton Fair, Liu Jianjun, deputy director of the China Foreign Trade Centre, said the organisers were encouraging companies to settle in the renminbi to reduce pressure on manufacturers, many of whom only receive payment after they have delivered their products months after orders are made.
中国对外贸易中心(China Foreign Trade Centre)副主任刘建军在广交会的开幕式上表示，主办方鼓励企业用人民币结算来减轻制造商的压力。许多制造商在签订订单之后的数月后发货，然后才会收到付款。
The shift is part of the central government’s push to internationalise the Chinese currency. China Daily last month said 17,000 companies in Guangdong had conducted transactions in the renminbi since 2009.
这种转变是中国中央政府推动人民币国际化的举措的一部分。《中国日报》(China Daily)上月报道称，自2009年以来，广东已有1.7万家企业使用人民币交易。
Fan Dan, whose employer L&Q Army makes military-style clothes and bags, says she welcomes the push to settle in the renminbi. But she explains that few customers have the capability because they do not have offices in China to help them navigate the process. “We have to accept it,” says Ms Fan.
L&Q Army是一家生产军事风格服装和背包的公司。该公司员工范丹（音译）表示，她欢迎用人民币结算的举措。但她解释称，很少有客户有这个能力，因为他们没有在华设立办公室从事这种结算过程。范丹说：“我们必须认识到这一点。”
While the mix of higher factory wages, a stronger local currency, growing domestic competition and weak global demand takes its toll on Chinese export data, the actual pain is felt by small companies such as Ambassador, a Shenzhen luggage factory that manufactures suitcases for Benetton and Gambol of Spain.
在工资上涨、人民币升值、国内竞争加剧和全球需求疲弱对中国出口数据造成损害的同时，Ambassador等小企业感受到了切实的伤害。Ambassador是深圳一家为西班牙的贝纳通(Benetton)和Gambol生产箱包的工厂。
Standing inside a large booth at the Canton Fair, Lu Wei, an Ambassador salesman, says his factory made 50,000 suitcases for Benetton last year, compared with 200,000 before the global financial crisis.
在广交会的一个大型展位里，Ambassador销售员卢伟（音译）说，他的工厂去年为贝纳通生产了5万个箱包，而在全球金融危机前每年为20万个。
Customer pressure to cut costs also means margins have been squeezed to the extent that it makes only $10 profit on a three-suitcase set it sells for $80 – and certainly fetches several times that outside China.
客户要求降低成本的压力也意味着，利润率非常低，以至于售价80美元（当然，在中国以外的售价是它的数倍）的三件套箱包只有10美元的利润。
Just as western companies are looking to China for sales amid weak demand elsewhere, Ambassador started selling cases in China – a growing market as millions more Chinese travel overseas for the first time each year – five years ago, helping to compensate for slumping European demand.
就在西方企业因其他地区需求疲弱，而将目光转向中国市场的销售之际，Ambassador在5年前就开始在国内销售箱包，这帮助弥补了欧洲需求的不断下降。每年有数百万中国人首次出国旅游，中国国内市场不断增长。
Already, the Chinese market accounts for 30 per cent of its annual sales. “We want to build our brand,” says Mr Lu.
如今中国市场已经占到Ambassador年销售额的30%。卢伟说：“我们想要树立自己的品牌。”
Ambassador is not alone in seeing a strong future in China, particularly as the country shifts from being an investment-driven economy to one where consumption contributes more to growth.
并非只有Ambassador看到中国市场强劲的未来，尤其是在中国从投资驱动型经济转向消费主导型经济之际。
Arif Sethi, a Pakistani trader who has been exhibiting his Chinese-made sporting products at the Canton Fair for 25 years, says European sales have “dramatically dropped” over the past five years. But he says the Chinese market – where leather boxing gloves are his most popular product – promises a “very bright future” as incomes rise and especially as people become body conscious.
25年来，巴基斯坦贸易商阿里夫•塞蒂(Arif Sethi)一直在广交会展出他的中国产体育产品。塞蒂说，欧洲的销售在过去5年里“大幅下降”。但他表示，随着中国人收入增长，尤其是人们越来越重视身材，中国市场有着“非常灿烂的未来”。塞蒂在中国市场上最受欢迎的产品是真皮拳击手套。
“If you have a nice body [in China], you will find a nice partner. If you have a nice personality, you will not impress,” says Mr Sethi.
塞蒂说：“如果你（在中国）身材好，就会找到一个好伴侣。如果你只是性格好，就吸引不了人。”
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