There are divided opinions about whether the projected recession in the West will have a detrimental effect on exports from China. At the World Economic Forum Meeting in Tianjin at the end of September, Western delegates were pessimistic about the knock-on effect of the slowdown in America. However, the Chinese representative was of the opinion that this would be a Western – not a global – economic downturn. He predicted that there would only be a slight slowdown in China during 2008. This is good news for the logistics and freight forwarding industry, as was Peter Mandelson’s plea for nations not to react by introducing more protectionism.