On top of wage increases, the costs of jetting to far flung locations and more importantly, moving goods from the factory to the store keeps heading upward.

Wage and raw-material costs have been rising sharply in recent years, while the appreciation of the yuan against the dollar since July 2005 has made Chinese goods more expensive in dollar terms.

The most likely outcome is that it would help other low-wage economies like Vietnam, India and Bangladesh, which make many of the same goods as China.