Several cities in Guangdong Province are poised to increase their minimum wages by up to 20 percent in April, say manufacturers and business groups in the province with close ties to local officials.

The wage increases, if realized, could potentially create a greater cost burden for exporters of China-made goods in the Pearl River Delta, although they might help alleviate recent labor shortages.

With China’s coastal manufacturing belts like the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta finding it increasingly difficult to find extra workers to ramp up production lines as Western orders pick up, places like eastern Jiangsu Province have recently acted to raise minimum wage rates by around 13 percent.

Guangdong’s Party chief Wang Yang recently said the province would also consider increasing the minimum wage given the labor shortfall, although the scope and timing of such increases hasn’t yet been publicly announced.

Chinese media have reported factories in coastal regions have had trouble finding workers after the Chinese New Year in February, as migrants take up more abundant and higher paid jobs in third-tier cities in China’s poorer interior.