The rising costs of raw materials, coupled with ongoing supply-chain strains mean Chinese manufacturers are raising the prices of export goods, including apparel and footwear, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Cotton prices alone have jumped to around $2,600 a tonne in early March, compared with around $1,990 a tonne in mid-February.

Even though the Ever Given container ship is now free, after its six-day blockage of the Suez Canal, supply-chains remained constrained following the pandemic, with long lulls in orders, followed by a sharp increase in demand from Western countries exiting lockdowns, causing a shortage of shipping containers and a back up of shipments at ports where goods manufactured in China and the rest of Asia would normally be unloaded.

Prices for imports from China to the US rose 1.2 percent over the past year, the fastest increase since 2012, with most of the increase coming in the three months ending in February, according to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.