(6) Kevin Hamlin and Dexter Roberts with Jason Clenfield and Bloomberg News, The Asian Jobs Ladder Is Broken.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/f ... des-now-it-s-broken
Note:
(a) summary underneath the title in print: An economic model that's organized an entire hemisphere for decades could be coming to an abrupt end
that's organized = that has organized
(b) The print and online version are the same, including the diagram.
(c) "Thirty minutes by car into the scrubby desert outside Korla [巴音郭楞州库尔勒市], in China's remote Xinjiang region, a textile manufacturer owned by Jinsheng Group 江苏金昇实业股份有限公司 is building its latest factory complex [fully automated with few German engineers]. * * * Jinsheng's factory * * * [will] need[] only a few hundred production workers for each shift. * * * Pan Xueping 潘雪平, the [Jinsheng] chairman and chief executive officer * * * Pan’s company is at the vanguard of a trend that could have devastating consequences for Asia's poorest nations. Low-cost manufacturing of clothes, shoes, and the like was the first rung on the economic ladder that Japan, South Korea, China, and other countries used to climb out of poverty after World War II. For decades that process followed a familiar pattern: As the economies of the early movers shifted into more sophisticated industries such as electronics, poorer countries took their place in textiles, offering the cheap labor that low-tech factories traditionally required. * * * Today, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Myanmar are in the early stages of climbing that ladder—but automation threatens to block their ascent."
(d) "Cai Fang 蔡昉, a demographer in Beijing who advises the Chinese government on labor policy"
(e) In the Web there is no convincing video clips of automation from or about SoftWear Automation (based in Atlanta, Georgia) and Adidas AG's "speedfactory" in its hometown of Ansbach -- despite the hype in this BusinessWeek article.
(i) Ansbach
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansbach
(a city in Bavaria; section 1 Name origin: meaning in English: Onold's brook)
(ii) The town of Herzogenaurach is actually home to sporting goods companies Adidas and Puma. Herzogenaurach is outside of Ansbach, separate by 37 km. Both are close to Nuremberg.
(f) Shandong Ruyi Technology Group Co 山東如意科技集団有限公司, the owner of luxury brands such as Sandro and Maje
(i) Sandro
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandro
(a diminutive of Alessandro)
(ii) History. Sandro, Maje, Claudie Pierlot (SCMP), undated
http://www.smcp.com/en/group/history/
(Sandro Maje founded in 1984 by sisters in Paris; 2009 "acquisition of Claudie Pierlot (founded in 1984)" )
There is a French-, but not English-, language Wiki page.
(iii) news in chronological order. There is no need to read either report.
(A) Astrid Wendlandt, China's Shandong Ruyi to Take over Sandro, Maje Labels: Sources. Reuters, Mar 29, 2016.
www.reuters.com/article/us-scmp-chinese-idUSKCN0WV29B
("One of the sources said that founders Evelyne, Ylan Chetrite and Judith Milgrom, who together own 21.11 percent of the company were more in favour of an IPO but KKR, which has 70 percent, backed a deal with the Chinese group ['for 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) including debt'] * * * The founders, together with the company's management will retain a minority stake under the deal, the sources said")
This report did not say what percentage of SMCP that Ruyi was buying.
(B) Pascale Denis, Parisian Chic Pays off for Owner of Sandro, Maje Fashion Brands. Reuters, Mar 30, 2017
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-smcp-results-idUSKBN1710EV
(the 2016 "higher annual profits and sales * * * was partly due to the allure of Parisian chic for Chinese customers * * * 2016 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) [ie, profit] rose 22 percent to 130 million euros ($140 million). Sales rose by 16.4 percent to 787 million euros")
(g) "As wages rose in China, Transit Luggage Co [Ltd] 东莞市凌日箱包有限公司, a suitcase maker based in the southern city of Dongguan, explored two options: moving production to low-wage Vietnam or investing in automation at home. Executives chose the latter. One robot now matches the output of about 30 workers making soft luggage, says sales manager Yang Yuanping. As a result, she says, the company employs fewer workers than it did a decade ago, while producing three times as many items." |