Here's a really interesting story by a former colleague of mine at the LA Times, Don Lee.

(By the way, it was leaked late yesterday that the paper is essentially closing its once mighty 50-plus reporter Washington bureau, which is a terrible journalistic crime. The news upset so many people at the paper and is a huge loss for journalism. But I digress.)

The story of note takes a look at how tens of thousands of factories in China are shutting down, some by owners who are literally just walking out the door.


Even before the global financial crisis, factory owners in China were straining under soaring labor and raw-material costs, an appreciating Chinese currency and tougher legal, tax and environmental requirements. When the credit crunch took hold -- prompting Western businesses to slash orders for Chinese goods and bankers to curtail loans to factories -- many operations were pushed over the edge.

But the numbers are huge. Government statistics show that 67,000 factories of various sizes were shuttered in China in the first half of the year, said Cao Jianhai, an industrial economics researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. By year's end, he said, more than 100,000 plants will have closed.


categories: Asia's Financial Crisis

10:27 - November 3, 2008

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