Despite rising trade tensions, American companies aren’t leaving China in a big way yet, analysts say.
U. S. companies aren’t leaving China in a big way yet, despite escalating trade tensions between the two economic powerhouses, analysts said.
«A lot of companies are talking about making changes, but (are) not actively making changes,» said Chris Rogers, research analyst at Panjiva, a supply chain data company that’s part of S&P Global Market Intelligence.
«Nobody’s going to make any changes until they see how this summit goes between President Trump and President Xi,» he said referring to their upcoming meeting at the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1.
«(I) haven’t seen any significant U. S. companies leaving China,» Rogers said in a phone interview Friday.
Many hope the G-20 meeting will diffuse trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies, which this summer began to apply additional tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of each other’s imports.
The tariffs may encourage U. S. companies to step up a trend of increasing manufacturing operations outside China, analysts said. As labor costs in China rise, many companies — including some Chinese firms — are looking toward Southeast Asian countries as new manufacturing centers.
But the desire to look outside China doesn’t mean leaving the country altogether.
Rather than investing more in a Chinese factory, a foreign company may invest more in another country, such as Vietnam, Nick Marro, a Hong Kong-based analyst with The Economist Intelligence Unit, said in a phone interview Friday.
Indeed, a study from the research group found that Vietnam and Malaysia could benefit the most in the long run from a U.
