What effect export crack-down in China?

Today's newspapers are full of stories about China's crack down on exports. This is, reportedly designed to move manufacturers of low-cost tat up the value chain, help ease pollution and the trade surplus. Take your pick of which of these is the most significant. Reports are here from Bloomberg, the South China Morning Post (boo, hiss, behind the wall), and the China Daily.

I wonder what impact this will have on the likes of Alibaba.com, Global Sources and the HK Trade Development Council, all of whom rely on these small manufacturers, most of them in China. The upside of their business is certainly heavily dependent on their capacity to export more, not less.

As the new regulations require significant deposits (not sure if I understand this), they will be very cash-strapped in the coming months. If they survive, they're not going to have much to spend for new marketing activities.

Mind you, China typically seems to over-step the mark when imposing new regulations like this, using blunderbuss measures where more targeted steps might be more effective. Once the damage they are causing becomes clear, the officials will probably pull back in a couple of months. We'll have to watch this very closely though.