The best sites for electronics investments

In EETimes' survey the participating companies answered the question of what matters when choosing site to put their foreign investments. On a scale of importance most of the companies had four outstanding arguments: local market accessibility, good local partner, political stability and protection of intellectual property. Legal/regulatory issues, lack of time and lack of IP rights protection are named as top expansion obstacles. According to EETimes' article today's foreign investments are no longer about finding cheap labor costs to be able to manufacture products at lower prices. Today it is about learning more about the local markets and to make a footprint there with partnerships and well developed product strategies to be able to provide the best selling products. One reason for example semiconductor companies to invest offshore is to reduce the costs of ownership. Many governments are providing trade-free zones, tax benefits and other grants. According to the analyze firm Future Horizons Malcolm Penn "the only factor to consider is the access to engineers", if also the engineer is cheap it is just a double bonus. To the most popular and well established locations for foreign investments, also known as the sure things in the EETimes article, are India, China, Ireland, Malaysia and the Philippines. EETimes also named some “good bets”, which could be a good alternative. Those are Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Mexico and Scotland. Five companies EETimes has a low portion of faith for are what they call the sleepers. These are Israel, Sweden, Brazil, Malta and Batam in Indonesia. Click here to read the full article on EETimes.