''China imports threatens South Africa manufacturing''

From Engineering News

''The import of cheap goods from China was one of the largest external factors inhibiting the exploitation of the manufacturing sector in South Africa, said Manufacturing Circle chairperson Stewart Jennings on Wednesday.

Speaking at the launch of the Manufacturing Circle’s position document ahead of the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) Mangaung conference in December, he criticised the Free Market Foundation statement last month claiming that cheap imports were not hurting the manufacturing industry, saying that local jobs were being lost and exported to China, in particular.

The manufacturing sector had lost in excess of 300 000 jobs between the first quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2012.

He also noted the closure of about 440 000 small businesses, of which some were a direct result of Chinese imports, in addition to a depressed sector.''

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''China imports North Koreans to beat rising wages''

From Times Of India
 

''China is tackling labour shortage and rising wages by importing thousands of North Korean workers from across the border. The Chinese immigration has permitted a second batch of 20,000 workers bringing the total number of North Koreans in China to 40,000 in recent months, according to media reports.

Most imported labour is women because the North Korean government is wary of political dissidents escaping the country if more men are allowed. Besides, China wants to avoid a rush of North Korean men after violent incidents resulting in the death of some Chinese citizens in past.''

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''Foxconn builds products for many vendors, but its mud sticks to Apple''

From Mis-Asia
By Michael Kan

''Foxconn, which employs some 1.2 million workers in China, is secretive about who it does business with, and the company declined to name its customers for this article. But analysts who follow the company offered examples of the products assembled, and the list is long.

Sony's PlayStation 3, the Nintendo Wii and Amazon's Kindle Fire are just a few of the products Foxconn makes. It also produces TVs for Sony, Sharp, and Toshiba; handsets for Nokia, Motorola and Huawei, and networking equipment for Cisco, according to Arthur Liao, an analyst with Fubon Securities Investment Services Co.

Foxconn is also a major assembler of PCs for Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Acer, and manufactures all three of the big game consoles, from Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony, other analysts said.''

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''Fake Products Swallow Economy on Global Scale''

From Epoch Times

''It’s a constant game of cat and mouse between counterfeiters and law enforcement authorities.

As counterfeiters have moved beyond knock-off Rolexes and fake Louis Vuitton handbags to more ambitious, and dangerous, goods such as medicine, electronics, and food products; the stakes in terms of harm to human health and the global economy have increased.

The Washington-based International Anticounterfeiting Coalition estimates that counterfeiting costs the globally economy $600 billion a year. ''

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''How China bleeds South Africa dry''

From Business Day Live

''A report put out last week by the University of East Anglia in Britain says 77000 factory jobs were lost in SA between 2001 and 2010 because of an influx of cheap Chinese products.

Ten years ago manufacturing, which is the second- biggest sector in the local economy, contributed 19% of GDP. Today it contributes 15% and this is falling sharply.

The stark truth is that China is killing SA's manufacturing sector. And the SA government is allowing it to do so through a combination of naivety, incompetence, susceptibility to flattery and ideology.''

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South Africa: "SA exports 'crowded out' by Chinese products''

From Engineering News

''South Africa has lost out on $900-million in trade with sub-Saharan Africa because of increased Chinese imports, costing the country more than 77 000 jobs over a decade, a new report by the University of East Anglia (UEA) from the UK has revealed.

South Africa’s industrial production, which grew by 14% between 2001 and 2010, could have been about 5% higher had the country not lost market share to China, while its exports to sub-Saharan Africa would have been 10% higher.''

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Study: ''Chinese imports cost 2.7 million jobs in the United States since 2001''

From Commercial Appeal

''A new report from a liberal think tank says Chinese imports caused the loss of 2.7 million jobs in the United States, including 96,300 in the Mid-South, since the industrializing nation joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.''

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''Time lapse map shows how Walmart conquered the U.S. over the course of 50 years''

From Daily Mail

''Charting the impressive growth of Walmart across the United States, a GIF map shows how the family-owned firm progressed from one store in Rogers, Arkansas, to 3,500 stores in the United States alone.

Founded by Sam Walton in 1962, the firm has become the world's largest retailer and it the world's biggest private employer with more than two million members of staff.

Headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, the firm generates 51 percent of its $258 billion sales from its grocery business and the Walton family who control 48 percent of the firm are worth a combined $102.7billion.''

see map here

''Chinese imports come with food safety price''

From Western Farm Press

''The trends are stark and unmistakable: over the last 10 years fruit and vegetable imports from other countries to the United States have increased sharply with no letup in sight, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

As of 2010, almost half of the fresh fruit and one-fourth of the vegetables consumed in the U.S. were imported, according to Dr. Luis Ribera, an agricultural economist at the Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Weslaco.''

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''German Solar Industry Getting Hammered by Cheap Chinese Imports''

From Clean Technica

"Cheap imports of silicon solar photovoltaic (PV) panels from China, sharp cuts in subsidies, and the ongoing euro zone debt crisis is taking a heavy toll on Germany’s once world-beating solar energy industry. “The golden era of the German solar energy sector is over.''

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Cheap imports of silicon solar photovoltaic (PV) panels from China, sharp cuts in subsidies, and the ongoing euro zone debt crisis is taking a heavy toll on Germany’s once world-beating solar energy industry.
“The golden era of the German solar energy sector is over,” according to a June 16 Deutsche Welle (DW) article. “At its peak, Germany had a 20-percent share of the global solar energy market, but now the figure stands at just 6 percent. After a rapid decline in recent months, more job cuts are expected to hit the industry.

Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/1eLQy)

Zimbabwe: "Cheap Chinese imports killing us''

From News Day

''He said a lot of Asian imports were being dumped into the country through unofficial channels and at cheaper prices, thus crippling the Zimbabwean manufacturing industry. “We need government to get involved and give lines of credit because our industry dwindled four to five years ago and the dollarisation issue opened up competition from outside the borders,” he said.''

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''As China dumps in India's solar market, domestic industry shrivels''

From News Track India

..........''But things have become gloomy for the domestic industry, which is unable to catch up with global players, who get incentives like subsidies for exporting their products. China is dumping solar products in the market the world over at much cheaper rates and many countries are coming up with anti-dumping guidelines to give an edge to their domestic companies.
 "There is massive potential for solar energy in India with over 30 percent of population still having no access to electricity. The government came up with the solar mission but unfortunately it remained silent on what role Indian solar companies can play," Ajay Prakash Srivastava, president of Solar Energy Society of India (SESI), told IANS.''

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''The High Cost of Our Addiction to China''

From CNBC
By Scott Paul

"Ten years after the United States officially ended its yearly review of China's trade status, no one can credibly argue that China is any freer or more attentive to human rights, nor can they claim the United States is better off economically as a result of our bilateral trade and investment relationship with the People's Republic."

Too many Americans are addicted to cheap credit and to artificially cheap Chinese imports at big box stores. If we gazed beyond our computer screens for a minute or two, we'd notice America crumbling around us. Our infrastructure is falling apart. Our politics are in disarray. Our finances are shaky. And we've lost our long-term, strategic focus.''

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''Former World Bank adviser on possible "trade war" with China''

From Channel News Asia

"However, Mr Dahlman has warned in his new book, "The World Under Pressure", that tension towards China is rising not just from America but other countries like Brazil - which has implemented measures like levies on Chinese imports.

And there is a growing global concern over the world's second largest economy buying up natural resources from Africa and the Middle East.

Mr Dahlman said: "When you have big changes in relative power, they tend to lead to trade wars, resource wars, cold wars like what we had with Russia, or worst yet, conventional wars. In my analysis, I am not expecting it to happen, I am just saying that there are these big tensions which are growing and they have to be defused."


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''Low cost era over for China's workshops to the world''

From Reuters


"Foxconn Technology's agreement to improve the lot of its 1.2 million workers in China who make Apple Inc's iPads and iPhones is a signal that China is losing its title as the world's lowest-cost producer of everything.

It is not a pure economic argument, but an ethical one too that is gaining momentum following Apple's unprecedented decision to allow the largest investigation ever into a U.S. company's operations abroad."

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Australia: 'Cheap Chinese imports ‘good for the nation'

From Australia Herald Sun

"And the fact Chinese workers are paid as little as 80 cents an hour does not threaten Australian industry.

Trade Minister Craig Emerson today said cheap imports brought down the cost of living, kept a lid on the Consumer Price Index, and put downward pressure on interest rates.

In a speech to the National Press Club on the importance of China, Dr Emerson said no one was forced to buy cheap products, which all complied with Australian food, safety and quarantine standards."

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''Cheap Chinese tools killing Indian firms''

From First Post

"The country’s new energy companies were being “crushed” due to the dramatic slashing of prices of solar equipment by Chinese industry and the government will have to adopt regulatory measures to safeguard Indian interests, Union Minister Farooq Abdullah said in New Delhi today.

Addressing a meeting on new energy, the Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy said, “The price of these panels has come down basically from China. Our own industry is suffering because these Chinese are bringing the prices of their panels down so dramatically to crush our industry."

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Zimbabwe complains of 'cheap chinese imports'

From The Zimbabwean

"The country’s leading shoe manufacturer, Bata, has been severely affected by cheap imported footwear from China."
 
"The company’s director, Louis Pinto, told The Zimbabwean that Chinese imports were flooding the market and putting a strain on business. “We have been affected by the unfair competition generated by the informal sector because they don’t pay import tax and therefore deprive the government of much needed revenue. We urge the government to monitor the sector,” he said."

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''Is the era of a 'cheap China' coming to an end?''

From The Week

"China's massive cheap labor force helped fuel its economic boom by enabling the country to undersell its more industrialized competitors in the global marketplace. But the "pace of change in China has been so startling that it is hard to keep up," says The Economist, and the "old stereotypes about low-wage sweatshops are as out-of-date as Mao suits." The cost of labor is rising, and rapidly. China is even importing more than it exports, posting its largest trade deficit in 12 years in February — and some are saying that's a good thing. Here, a guide to the worker's evolution in China":........read more

''High-tech companies grapple with rising costs in China''

from bellingham herald...

"The price to make Silicon Valley gadgets and computers in China - the assembly line for the global tech industry - is going up, forcing tech companies to rejigger supply chains to contain costs and to consider charging more for electronic devices.

With millions of Americans out of work, some hope the soaring salaries and other rising costs across the Pacific will trigger a renaissance in low-cost manufacturing in the United States. That is not expected to happen any time soon, experts say. But there is mounting concern among tech executives in the fiercely competitive gadget and PC markets."

Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/03/07/2425547/high-tech-companies-grapple-with.html#storylink=cpy