How Chinese competition has changed the European industry
It gives a little cold in the back, and it is precisely the desired effect.The imposing chandelier is entirely made up of human bones made of black glass, where you can see skulls, vertebrae and skeletal hands whose adults are drawn up in honor with provocation.In his workshop in Murano, where glass blowers are busy, Adriano Berengo speaks with pride of this surprising creation: "We have designed it with Ai Weiwei, the dissident artist of Beijing, for an exhibition," explains the Voluble Venetian, smile.It’s a great revenge on China, right?»»
Without a doubt.Many, in Murano, will still find him a bitter taste. Sur cette île italienne, l’artisanat du verre, soufflé ici depuis le XIIIe siècle, a en effet été brutalement secoué lorsque la Chine est entrée dans l’Organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC), en 2001.Imitations of traditional vases and trinkets, made at low cost near Beijing or Shanghai, then swept through the stores of the lagoon, where they constituted up to 70 % of the parts sold to tourists.A tidal raz, many of which have not gotten up.Since the 1990s, the number of employees in the sector has melted by 6,000 by hardly more than 700 today.Those who survived have bet on the upright, like Berengo, which multiplies collaborations with renowned artists."At least the pieces they produce cannot be counterfeit," he said.
Lire aussiArticle réservé à nos abonnésOMC : les vingt ans qui ont consacré la puissance économique de la Chine"The Italian economy was particularly affected by Chinese competition in 2001, and even before," explains Giovanni Foresti, economist at Intetesa Sanpaolo.She's not the only one.Like Murano glassmakers, many traditional sectors in France, Spain, Belgium or even in the United Kingdom also had trouble facing."In particular those specialized in products at the end of the cycle, or those who have already faced deindustrialisation since the 1970s, especially in France", analyzes Jean-Marc Siroën, economist at Paris-Dauphine University.
This "Chinese shock", as economists have named, was of an unequaled magnitude until then: in barely two decades, the Empire of the Middle has become the first exporter of goods on the planet, with 16,1 %market share in 2019, according to Eurostat, ahead of the European Union (EU, 15.4 %) and the United States (10.6 %).Third destination for European exports (10.5 %), after the United States (18.3 %) and the United Kingdom (14.4 %), it is today one of our main business partners.Above all, 22.4 %of goods imported into the EU come from China, far ahead of those produced in the United States (11.8 %) and in the United Kingdom (9.8 %).
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