Tuesday, December 14

It's not just wages

Bangladesh Is Surviving to Export Another Day by Keith Bradsher
...now, without quotas to ensure access, quality and modernity will count as much as, if not more than, low wages. Poor countries will have to compete on the scale and skill of their factories and on the efficiency of their roads, ports and electrical grids. Most of the cost of clothing lies not in the labor but in the logistics of moving it to stores for sale, so low manufacturing wages by themselves are not enough.

...in the longer run, the survival of the garment industry in Bangladesh and other developing countries depends upon how well governments respond to the demands of the global market. That will be affected, in part, by how much they invest in roads, ports and electricity grids; in the past, such infrastructure has been starved of investment here and elsewhere.

No comments: