Eastern Europe emerges as an electronics manufacturing venue
By Tom Stundza -- Purchasing, 5/3/2007 12:58:00 PM
Eastern Europe is becoming an important manufacturing location for electronics manufacturing services providers, according to market researcher iSuppli.
Greg Sheppard, chief development officer at iSuppli, says Eastern Europe is handling more manufacturing of liquid crystal display televisions, computer, cell phones, liquid crystal display (LCD) televisions and other consumer electronics equipment.
Eastern Europe’s electronic system production revenue is expected to rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.2% from 2005 through 2010. This compares to a negative 2.4% CAGR for the rest of Europe during the same period.
Why is Eastern Europe growing so quickly? “Eastern Europe benefits from having a labor force that is typically of a higher level of education compared to other developing nations,” says Sheppard.In addition, there is strong demand from consumers in eastern Europe and production costs that are far lower than those of Western Europe.
The region also is benefiting from the rise in tax grants and benefits from governments. These governments are striving to increase the gross domestic products (GDPs) of their countries, Sheppard said.
For companies, maintaining an R&D center or manufacturing plant in the Eastern European region means they will generate good will among the local population and possibly even that they can avoid tariffs set in place to discourage products from other countries such as China from being dumped on the market.
Eastern European countries include Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Turkey and Ukraine, according to iSuppli.
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