Growing Concerns over China’s Factories

Eight years ago, Pascal Lighting employed about 2,000 workers on a leafy campus in southern China. Today, the Taiwanese light manufacturer has winnowed its workforce to just 200 and leased most of its space to other companies: lamp workshops, a mobile phone maker, a logistics group, a liquor brand.

“It used to be as long as you had more orders, you could get everything you needed to expand your factory, and you could expand,” says Johnny Tsai, Pascal’s general manager.

No longer. The Chinese factory – an institution that was once so large, it was measured in football fields – is shrinking.  Rising labor costs, higher real estate prices, less favorable government policies and smaller order volumes are forcing Chinese plants to downsize just to survive.

CNBC

Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.