The Number Of Nike Sneakers Produced In Vietnam Has Exceeded China Two Years Ago

"Vietnam is the main production base of Nike sports shoes, and almost half of the shoes exported from Vietnam are Nike shoes."

Vice president, Nike group, USA

At the end of last year, when visiting Vietnam, Vietnam said that the number of Nike sports shoes produced by Vietnam has surpassed that of China and ranked first in the world.

In fact, in recent years, with the continuous improvement of investment environment in Southeast Asian countries, more and more European and American multinational enterprises are pferring their production bases from China to Vietnam, Indonesia, Kampuchea and other countries. Do they have enough capacity to undertake China's existing energy production and replace China as a new "world factory"?

Low cost is the main reason for attracting foreign investment.

Statistics show that Vietnam's footwear

In recent years, there is indeed a continuous development: as of the end of 2011, Vietnam's 40 factories producing Nike shoes produce 150 million pairs of Nike and CONVERSE sports shoes each year, providing 300 thousand jobs for Vietnam.

"The low cost of labor is an important reason why Nike group chose to continue to produce in Vietnam."

Nick spoke bluntly.

After several years of development, Vietnam's industrial chain has begun to gradually improve.

Nick introduced: first of all, Vietnam's production, the production of a pair of Nike shoes 98% of raw materials need to import, and now, this proportion has dropped to 56%.

Like Nike, Honda Corporation has gradually shifted production from China to Vietnam. Besides labor costs, it is cheaper than China, and it can also avoid the ever rising appreciation of RMB.

In the first half of this year, Japan was the largest source of foreign investment in Vietnam, accounting for 65% of Vietnam's foreign investment in this period.

American companies are also starting to "compete" for the first place in Vietnam.

In early July this year, 21 US companies including Chevron, Coca-Cola, Caterpillar and general electric jointly inspected the Vietnamese market to discuss investment plans.

As the largest economy in Southeast Asia

In recent years, it is also becoming an ideal country for foreign investment.

According to Wu Yongsheng, the representative of the Indonesian official chamber of Commerce, the Indonesian chamber of Commerce and industry, Indonesia has no control over foreign exchange, the Indonesian shield can freely convert foreign currencies, and profits from foreign investment can be freely remitted after paying taxes.

Moreover, the tariff is not high, the labor force is cheap, the population is large, and the current political stability is an important factor in attracting foreign investment.

The Indonesian government has made a lot of efforts to attract foreign investment.

In order to improve the investment environment, Indonesia has made some changes to foreign investment laws and labor laws, which are conducive to foreign investors. The restrictions on foreign investment are relaxed step by step, simplifying the examination and approval procedures of foreign capital and shortening the time of examination and approval.

According to Wu Yongsheng, taking into account Indonesia's abundant and cheap labor force, EPSON invested $150 million in 2011 to build a printer factory in Bekasi, West Java, Taiwan. Foxconn technology group of Taiwan is also preparing to invest 1 billion US dollars in Indonesia to build a factory as a global production center.

In Kampuchea, in addition to the labor costs far lower than China, the United States, Europe, Japan and other 28 countries have been granted the Kampuchea GSP treatment (GSP).

Moreover, the United States, the European Union and Canada also reduce import tariffs on textiles and clothing imported from Kampuchea.

The government of Kampuchea has also issued preferential conditions for foreign textile and garment enterprises to reduce and exempt 9 years of income tax, exempt from export tax and exempt from import tax on raw materials to attract foreign investment.

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The world factory needs a sound industrial chain.

Nevertheless, Lu Qijian, Secretary General of the Kampuchea Garment Association, said in an interview that "at present, no country in Southeast Asia can take the place of China's" world factory "at least in the world.

It is understood that a complete textile industry chain needs to include cotton planting, spinning, weaving, printing and dyeing, clothing manufacturing, sales and other links.

The footwear industry will also include rubber planting and rubber processing.

"Strictly speaking, there is only garment industry in Kampuchea, and there is no real textile industry.

Because Kampuchea has almost no support for all the links before making garments. "

Lu Qijian said.

Kampuchea's Ministry of commerce data show that all raw materials related to garment manufacturing in Kampuchea basically rely on imports.

In the first half of this year, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Japan and other countries and regions became the main raw material import sites of Cambodia.

Among them, almost 90% of raw materials imported from China.

"After decades of development, China has established a complete industrial chain in the textile industry," Lu Qijian said. "The garment industry in Kampuchea only started after 2000, and there is still a long way to go."

As we all know, the normal operation of the spinning mills and weaving factories has a huge demand for electricity. "Apart from the backward technology of equipment, Kampuchea is not able to produce the electricity needed in the field at present."

Lu Qijian added.

In addition, Kampuchea's economic industry is too single.

Last year, the garment industry contributed more than 30% to Cambodia's national income. "It is precisely because the proportion of garment manufacturing in Kampuchea is too large in the economic development that it will become the biggest bottleneck for the development of the industry."

An official of the Ministry of Commerce of Kampuchea told reporters anonymously that once the external environment deteriorates, some garment factories in Kampuchea will face enormous pressure.

For example, in recent years, the rising cost of China and other countries has led to an increase in the import price of textile raw materials, which has increased the cost of local garment enterprises in Kampuchea.

Meanwhile, countries such as Europe and the United States are also being hit by the economic crisis, resulting in a decline in demand. Cambodian garment factories are facing the dilemma of "two blockage".

He believes that even in recent years, some large international enterprises have begun to shift factories to Southeast Asian countries, but they are only part of the industrial chain. "The main body of the whole industrial chain will remain in China for a long time".

Old facilities constitute constraints

Indonesia is also facing the same problem.

After decades of development, the vertical and horizontal integration of the textile industry in Indonesia has been quite complete, forming a complete industrial supply chain.

In 2011, Indonesia's textile exports amounted to US $13 billion, and the importance of the textile industry far exceeded that of the footwear industry, furniture industry, food processing industry and electronics industry. Indonesia's high unemployment rate was an important pillar for stabilizing the political and economic situation.

However, Indonesia's textile industry is also faced with problems such as outdated textile machinery, inefficient, capital shortage, fierce competition and illegal smuggling.

More deadly, Indonesia is seriously short of roads, ports and electricity to cope with economic growth.

Among them, the shortage of electricity is one of the important constraints. In addition to a slight surplus of electricity in East Java, there is a serious shortage of electricity in other parts of the country. At least 50 million of the 240 million people in the country are unable to use electricity.

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At the same time, Indonesia began to develop expressways in 1978. Up to now, only 762 km long road has been put into operation.

Lead to high logistics costs, accounting for 17% of the cost of production.

The project of the Java Island Expressway, which has been brewing for many years, has been delayed because of the problem of land expropriation.

Indonesians satirize that the speed of development of China's highways is increasing by 28 kilometers per day, and the speed is amazing. The construction of the same length of highways in Indonesia takes one year, and the speed is equally amazing.

Foreign investment is not the perfect place to invest.

Compared with China, Southeast Asian countries are far from ideal in terms of industrial chain and infrastructural facilities.

"Generally speaking, Kampuchea workers and Chinese workers are generally biased in terms of quantity or efficiency."

Shen Chen, chairman of the Yantai Rui group, a Cambodian factory, told reporters.

It is understood that there are more than 300 garment and shoemaking enterprises in Kampuchea, and about more than 330 thousand workers are employed in the factories.

91% of them were women.

Among them, education is generally low, and most workers only go to jobs through simple technical training.

The education level of Indonesian labor force is also generally low.

According to the data collected by the Indonesian National Bureau of statistics in February 2012, 55 million 500 thousand of the workforce over 15 years old in Indonesia only had primary and below educational level, accounting for 49% of the total workforce, while only 10% of the workforce with a tertiary education level, resulting in a small number of technicians and professionals and high wages.

Nevertheless, Indonesia's labor policy is designed to protect Indonesian labor force to solve the employment problem.

Under this policy, foreign enterprises only allow foreign professionals and senior managers to be recruited. Ordinary employees and middle-level cadres must employ Indonesian citizens.

Therefore, the industry generally believes that the Indonesian labor law is too partial to the labor force, and the trade union is strong, raising the cost of labor and affecting the competitiveness of Indonesian products.

In addition, corruption is rampant in Indonesia.

The pparency index of the global corruption watchdog Transparency International ranked Indonesia 100th in 2011.

The budgetary funds of the Indonesian government ministries and commissions have been pferred or misappropriated by 1/4.

Corruption indirectly causes Indonesia's infrastructure and public services to lag behind, and the whole country lacks competitiveness.

Corruption also leads to smuggling or blackmailing, reducing the credibility of the government and reducing the willingness to invest in foreign capital.

Although Indonesia's anti-corruption efforts have achieved some success recently, anti-corruption is still a formidable challenge for Indonesia now and in the future.

Vietnam is by no means the "perfect" investment place in the eyes of foreign businessmen: the continuous spontaneous strike, the high inflation rate and the shortage of workers with skilled labor are all "stumbling blocks" for foreign businessmen to invest in Vietnam.

Almost every year, the Nike shoe factories in Vietnam go on strike. There is only one reason why the workers go on strike, that is, they want to get higher wages.

Local media have also accused these factories of poor working conditions and low wages as "sweatshops".

Not competition with China

In this year's global economic downturn and the constraints of various investment bottlenecks, the amount of foreign investment attracted by some Southeast Asian countries has begun to regress.

The industry generally believes that compared with China, they are far from the "world factory".

Industry experts pointed out that a complete "world factory" system first requires a country to have a complete industrial chain in a specific area.

In addition, we need to develop several equally intact industrial chains in other related fields.

Several supporting industrial chains support each other to ensure the steady progress of the domestic economy.

At the same time, a large number of labor force is needed to play the role of "producer" and "consumer" so that the "world factory" can function properly.

"Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries and China should be complementary rather than competitive. China can migrate some of the enterprises in the labor-intensive industries to Southeast Asia."

Wu Yongsheng said.