Published: April 8, 2013
China Still Dominates, but Some Manufacturers Look Elsewhere
While China maintains its overwhelming dominance in manufacturing, multinational companies are looking for ways to limit their reliance on factories there.
Related Article »
Economic Output
In this map, geography is distorted so that each country is sized according to its economic output in 2012. The countries are colored by their rate of growth; more established economies tend to grow more slowly.
Each hexagon represents $2.7 billion in G.D.P.
China is both highly productive and growing rapidly. Considering individual provinces conveys its impressive scale: Guangdong, just one of 31 Chinese provinces, has an economic output greater than Indonesia.
Rising wages and risk in China are encouraging businesses to consider alternatives, including Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Japan and South Korea have large economic output, but growth has slowed as they have caught up with the West and innovation becomes more difficult.
New York shown for comparison.
Population
Sizing by population instead gives an estimate of a country’s economic potential, at least for labor-based manufacturing. The color here shows the economic output per capita: a measure of how effectively that potential has been realized, and a proxy for labor cost.
Each hexagon represents 500,000 people
Despite its large population, India’s troubles building an efficient transportation network, its bureaucratic land regulations and turbulent labor relations have slowed investment and growth there.
Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines each have a population close to a large Chinese province and have similar or lower wages, making them attractive alternatives to China.
Japan has one of the highest per-capita G.D.P.’s in the region. Some Japanese manufacturers are moving operations to countries with very low G.D.P. per capita, like Cambodia, to take advantage of cheap labor.
New York shown for comparison.
