According to official statistics, from January to July this year Tongzhou district in Nantong reported exports of 3.38 billion yuan ($472.15 million) to the United States, a year-on-year increase of 0.2 percent. 

On May 10, the US officially imposed tariffs on the $200 billion-worth of imports from China, and raised the tax rate on them from 10 percent to 25 percent. This led to a sharp drop in China’s exports to the US: from January to June, the number was down to 2.8 billion yuan, falling 2.6 percent year-on-year. 

Though the high tariffs have held back many customers from doing businesses with Chinese enterprises, Nantong’s exports saw an improvement in the latest numbers, officials said.   

Since the development and production of products need a certain amount of time, the trade war between China and US has little effect on local companies’ orders so far, they added. 

However, the high tariffs was certain to eventually cut the competitiveness of local commodity prices, causing enterprises to lose a considerable number of US customers, according to a businessman from Nantong. 

Tongzhou enterprises has been trying to make their way out of the looming customer churn, experts said. They have intensified the efforts in research and development, explored new markets and built plants overseas.

The district government has also risen to the occasion and put forward a series of measures to support local import and export enterprises. It will further improve the business environment and reinforce the core competitiveness of local industries, officials said. 

Chinese enterprises can still edge out in the trade war compared with that of other countries, with a quicker response to customer demands and shorter delivery times. In addition, thanks to their strong research and development capabilities, Chinese enterprises cannot easily be replaced by companies from other developing countries for a very long time, according to officials.