Samsung leaves China for good. The Korean giant, which recently lost its global leadership in smartphone sales to the Chinese Huawei, has announced that it will no longer produce anything in China. The reason: geopolitical tensions, the war on duties and also the cost of labour, which has been lower in Vietnam for years, where Samsung (but not only, South-East Asia is a trend) has already shifted production for some years of smartphones. The Korean group however, it still produced PCs and laptops in the Suzhou plant, inaugurated in 2002, one year after China's entry into the WTO (World Trade Organization).
The factory, which still today employs nearly 2.000 people (a third of the peak of 6.000 reached in 2012) will be definitively closed by the end of August. An inevitable decision, given that its profitability had plummeted over the years: eight years ago it generated 4,3 billion in exports of IT material, in 2018 only 1 billion. Suzhou was one of the many Samsung factories in China: the others, including those in Shenzhen, Tianjin and Huizhou, had already been closed between 2018 and 2019. Samsung's is not the only case of farewell to China, following the new trade tariffs, the escalation of tensions with the West and above all the birth of new "eldorados" in terms of labor costs, such as Vietnam.
In some cases, such as that of Japanese companies, it was the government itself that favored reshoring, through financial aid for groups that decided to return to produce at home. This has already been the case for 87 Japanese companies, who have brought production back either to their homeland or to the South-East, where Tokyo and Beijing are playing a challenge of geopolitical influence. Which lately seems to be turning in favor of Japan.
