Harry E. Figgie Jr.

(Photo Credit: Mckaysavage’s Photostream) A story in Business Standard Motoring explains how the Indian city of Chennai is fast becoming the “Detroit” of India – a major global auto hub. Government incentives are key. The automotive industry occupies an important place in the industrial map of Tamil Nadu. The state’s innovative policy for the sector [...]

(Photo Credit: Tasa_M’s Photostream) The Engineering Employers Federation (EEF) says that manufacturing is poised to fill the gap in the United Kingdom as the public sector reduces its role in the economy amidst large government deficits. Chief executive Terry Scuoler said: “Manufacturing is well-placed to fill the growth gap as the public sector plays a [...]

(Photo Credit: DanielFoster437) The Financial Times has a story on how Chinese manufacturing firms are moving away from the (more) expensive coastal regions in Eastern China and setting up shop in cheaper areas further inland. Here is the story. – The Editors

Richard Herman, writing at Huffington Post, asks whether “immigrants could drive the revival of American manufacturing.” Herman tells the story of A123 systems, an electric-car company created by three men who happen to be Indian, Taiwanese, and Venezuelan immigrants, respectively. Herman goes on to say that Our current immigration dinosaur system was built for the [...]

The USA Today has a story today about how General Electric, NCR, and Caterpillar (among others) are moving some operations from China back to the United States. According to the story by Paul Davidson There are myriad reasons for the shifts, often called “onshoring” or “reshoring.” Chinese wages and shipping costs have risen sharply in [...]

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has an op-ed in today’s Huffington Post, in which she explains how Michigan has successfully persuaded some of its manufacturing firms to stay in the state despite the opportunities for lower-wage labor abroad. Granholm’s piece should be read in its entirety, but here is the nut graph: While we won’t be [...]

Former Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Robert Kimmitt former Member of the Council of Economic Advisors Matthew J. Slaughter, writing in today’s Wall Street Journal, argue that the key to keeping manufacturing jobs in the United States is to encourage foreign investment. The authors put forward two specific policy proposals: First, it should issue an [...]

China’s undervalued currency is like the weather: everybody complains about it, but nobody ever does anything about it. Congress is once again considering – or at least threatening – to do something about it. But once again business leaders are lobbying against a House measure that would impose tariffs on Chinese goods. Their argument is [...]

Rising wages in China threaten the business models of high-volume, low margin companies like computer manufacturers Dell and Hewlett-Packard, reports Seeking Alpha. The article notes that high competition in the computer industry will make it difficult for the big companies to pass these higher input costs on to consumers. This, in turn, will threaten those [...]

The Economist Intelligence Unit reports that China’s future economic strength will not come from the high-volume, low-cost industries that dominate the Chinese economy today, but from developing high-end products that have previously been the foundation of the West’s economic strength. The article includes a neat chart, which shows that China’s labor costs have risen steeply [...]