The effect of the global financial tsunami on China "is worse than expected", Premier Wen Jiabao was quoted as saying by the National Bureau of Statistics Director Ma Jiantang when he briefed his staff early in November.

At the far end of the industrial chain, Mao along with millions of her peers nationwide, were totally unprepared for the crisis.

Mao used to work in a cloth factory in Shanghai earning 800 yuan per month. Her husband was a security guard in the southern boom city Shenzhen, for a monthly salary of about 1,000 yuan.

Mao was laid off this summer after the factory cut production and downsized. After hearing stories of how their fellow villagers made good money from scrap deals in Beijing, the couple, from Anhui province, decided to try their luck in the city.

Their work started in September, after the conclusion of the Olympic Games. They rode flatbed tricycles through alleys and on the streets everyday, ringing bells to attract customers.

The Chinese people are used to stockpiling unwanted newspaper, plastic bottles and scrap metal which can then be sold to migrant farm workers like Mao. Then, recycling firms do further processing and sell the waste as raw materials to manufacturing plants.

At first, the Mao's business seemed to be on the right track. The work was not so hard and they earned 2,000 yuan in the first month.

By October, the investment in scrap copper turned out to be a disaster.

The price of copper, with 99.95 percent purity, averaged 38,355 yuan per ton in the second half of October, down 22.6 percent from the first half of the month and down 40.8 percent year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Commerce. The Shanghai Futures Exchange in October also saw 13 of the 20 trading days with limit-down plunges for copper futures prices.