BEIJING - As they prepare for China's biggest export fair this week, managers at Shunde Xiongfeng Electric Industrial Co. are anxious.

Sales of electric fans are down this year, and the financial crisis will likely further cut demand from overseas. The 5,000-employee company in the southern city of Shunde, near Hong Kong, sold 6 million electric fans abroad last year.

"We are worried that if our clients are short of capital, they might shut down," said Shunde's export manager, who would only give his surname, Zeng. "That's certainly bad for us."

China has been known as the world's factory for everything from toys to T-shirts, and exports have powered its growth in recent years. But exports are taking a hit from the global financial crisis because of lower demand from overseas and tightening credit from state-owned banks.

A slowdown in Chinese exports would ripple through the world economy as China imports fewer raw materials, half-finished goods for assembly and supplies, such as Australian iron ore or factory equipment from the United States, Europe and Japan. Raw materials used for exports made up half of China's nearly US$1 trillion in imports last year.

China's economy is still expected to expand by at least 9 percent this year, and its banks are flush with cash and hold little risky debt. But its economy has been weakened by a bursting housing bubble and an anemic stock market, and the hope that China's appetite for imports will rescue other countries has been tempered. China accounted for a third of global economic growth in 2007, according to the World Bank.

"We still believe that China's growth will be relatively robust. That is helpful for the world economy," said Louis Kuijs, the World Bank's senior economist in Beijing. "Unfortunately, one economy like China will not be enough to keep world growth going....China just isn't big enough."

The Canton Fair, which opens Wednesday, will offer a measure of demand for Chinese goods, as exporters and customers gather in Guangzhou, the heart of China's export-driven manufacturing industries. Philip Richardson, an American who manufactures high-end stereo speakers in Guangzhou, said orders from the U.S. have dropped over the past two weeks.

"When they see the markets go down, they stop buying," he said.

Customers have canceled meetings with him at a Hong Kong trade show next week. Nine of 12 retailers have backed out of visits to his factory in the past two weeks. And as he stood talking, Richardson received a phone call from the Chinese vendor who makes his stereo cabinets.