Rising Costs: the End of China as a Production Base? What to Expect from the Year of the Dragon – Part II.
In our last analysis featuring the results of the CEIBS – China Integrated/Swiss Center Shanghai survey of Swiss and EU companies, we saw foreign companies battling with competitors and with building the necessary human resources to grow and invest as fast as they intend. For the first time, a group of respondents (the Swiss) see private Chinese companies posing a bigger challenge than their international competitors, a very interesting development.
This may turn into a double challenge when taking rising costs into the equation: it is of common knowledge that Chinese companies are very astute at cutting costs – and often the corners that go with them, as well!