Comments from Dongguan

Here's what the factories we met with this week are talking about when you ask how is business:

• Increasing cost of labor
• RMB appreciation versus the USD
• Shortage of skilled labor
• Government actions to try moving factories out of Guangdong province
• Low-tech factories moving further into China, or to other SE Asian countries
• Rain and flooding

I did not prompt. This was not a scientific study, but one to help with my MITA presentation. No mention of transportation costs, VAT rebates, or other cost issues.

The rain here is crazy. It's rained hard pretty much every day since I arrived last week. While driving you can see all the water. It didn't hinder us, but factories did mention it impacting their transportation and raw materials flow.