Our latest poll asked whether manufacturing could ever really be viable outside of the Far East.
Prompted by talk of Spanish classical guitar specialist Manuel Rodriguez bringing back some of its production from China, we pondered whether it was economically viable for large-scale manufacturing to happen outside of the Far East. Some 30 per cent of our pollsters said it was possible, but the significant majority – some 70 per cent – believed that perhaps those days are behind us. The reality, as ever, lies somewhere between the two. It depends on the product of course, but there’s plenty of examples of limited or small scale production in the UK and elsewhere. Rotosound for example, makes all its strings in the UK at its Sevenoaks HQ. Ditto Marshall amps.
So it can be done, but perhaps the Far East will continue to dominate. Unless of course there’s some massive stock market crash in China or something. Whoops.
