Electronics Production |
China is being over heated,<br>firms are looking for alternatives
China is choking on attracting foreign investors but many companies have now discovered that the neighbouring countries are just as good places for manufacturing as China.
In early in 2006 Intel spend $350m building a new factory in the emerging South-East Asian. Before the year was out, Intel went further and raised its investment to $1 billion. In eight months Intel had committed as much money to Vietnam as it had to China in the previous ten years, The Economist print edition reports.
Of course, cost and risk are not the only considerations in choosing where to put a factory. The quality of a country's infrastructure, the presence of suppliers and the size of the local market all count. For such reasons, China will remain an attractive place to invest.
evertiq earlier reported that EMS giant Flextronics is currently in a major recruiting campaign and the company is reportedly hunting for the most talented engineers for its new industrial park in Malaysia.
Flextronics will produce computer printers for the American company, Hewlett-Packard in Malaysia. The company has already vast facilities in China. But it chose Malaysia as the site for its latest investment, The Economist print edition reports.
According to Peter Tan president and managing director of Flextronics in Asia “China has become a victim of its own success," He finds it especially hard to hire and retain technical staff, ranging from finance directors to managers versed in international production techniques such as “six sigma" and “lean manufacturing". There are not enough qualified workers to go around, causing rampant poaching and extremely fast wage inflation. “China is definitely not the cheapest place to produce any more," he added.
