10 December 20
Insights

How Companies See China: 5 Things to Know

  • Companies across virtually every goods-based industry have been re-examining their reliance on China, which accounts for roughly 28% of global manufacturing and is a leading source of critical commodities such as rare earth minerals and ingredients for pharmaceutical products.
  • Outward migration of production was underway before the pandemic because tariffs imposed by the U.S. and China had increased supply chain costs by up to 10% for as much as 40% of companies sourcing in China, according to Gartner.
  • In one recent survey, one-quarter of businesses sourcing from China indicated plans to transition all or some of their operations to other countries over the next three years. In a Gartner survey, an even higher percentage – 33% — said they intend to pull manufacturing or sourcing out of China in the next two to three years.
  • Agility’s take is that uprooting from China is not as easy as it seems. Forty years after it began modernizing, China today holds advantages available nowhere else: unmatched scale; abundant skilled and unskilled labor; sophisticated automation, engineering and sciences; world-class infrastructure and logistics; closely synchronized and integrated supplier networks both in-country and across Asia.
  • Twenty-five years ago, leaving China meant leaving a low-cost manufacturing center. Today, for some multi-nationals, it would mean giving up on the world’s largest consumer market and an economy growing at twice the rate of the United States before the COVID-19 crisis.

Latest News