Things made in china

Will the Chinese one pump Australian water??

Geoff.

Who knows, we my end up buying water from China.

Economies of scale and the exchange rate might account for some of the story.

But it's worse than your story shows. I looked at the price of a particular non 4wd electronics device from there. The quality was so much better than what I thought it would be, as good as the local product or one from the US.
Local product costed out at around $300 per unit. Their price was around $100 per unit landed. However if I was prepared to buy a pallet load, the cost without freight went down to around $10 per unit !!
Another item from there was around $400. The company is a US one but they are made in China. The quality was excellent, and here's the kicker. If I paid for one they would GIVE me a free sample i.e Buy 1, get one free.

Obviously Australia's future isn't in the manufacturing sector.

Axle,
Millions of workers.
Work for very low wage.
No unions.
Used to working and doing things under these perameters. IMHO.
Cheers,
Bros.

Another angle is Intellectual Property and R&D avoidance as follows:

(1) A company/person spots an item that is a good seller and/or idea.

(2) Buy one.

(3) Buy a ticket for China imediately thereafter.

next thing you know the first mentioned item is being imported by this entity into Oz as that entities re badged item and selling way under the price of the original item.

Quality - well thats usually an unknown quantity.

Saw some rotary hammer drills the other day that were dead set ringers for the original HILTI rotary hammer drill.

However thats life in todays fast lane.

Chinese Crap is what i call it, Got one of those mini air-conditioner things from Auto-Barn last year , parted with $65.00 ,sat it on the dash when i went to bed and ....and....AND ...my dog could have fluffed and made a better wind that piece of plastic, LION brand all crap, as for the pump well i reackon you were wise ,

Doug

What you are seeing, is a repeat of what some of us older ones have seen in the past.

After the war, it was Japan.

The Japanese made rubbish, but they improved, and became a manufacturing force to be reckoned with.

Enter Korea. Same thing as Japan.

Both of these countries have now surpassed the mean break-even point on the world mass manufacturing stakes, enter China.

In America, there is a lot of gear made over the border in Mexico.

The advent of free trade agreements has made it easier for your local manufacturer to source his product from overseas.

Quality of Chinese goods is debatable, but that is the fault of the importer, who chooses to select rubbish, whereby other importers will source items of a longer lasting nature.

Sooner or later, the likes of Bunnings, will have to wake up to themselves, because of the image they have painted for themselves. Eventually people will have had enough, and buy better products.

We are on the world stage, whether we like it or not. Some industries have no option but to source overseas, but others will flourish, because there will always be discerning buyers.

That's why we have Hyundai's, and Rolls Royces. There will always be room for both.

I haven't really answered your question at all, have I....

Cheers

Wolfie

Axle,

When I grew up "Made in Japan" was another way of saying "it's junk".

Nowadays ?

I reckon the Chinese are doing the same - copy a good idea, then refine, then exceed the quality of the original. Reckon they are doing it much faster than the Japanese too - there's a lot more people and resources at their disposal, and it seems they are intent on making up for lost ground as quickly as possible.

IMHO, there's nothing much we can do to combat this, unless we (as a nation) reaqquaint ourselves with the concept of "education" rather than the training system which our educational system has become.

regards
Terry

that is true, the Morris Mini was the fore runner of the Jap front wheel drive.
A while back I watched an ephisode of Robbie Coltranes "Trains, Planes and Automobiles"
was about motorcycles and how in the 50's a European motorbike racer was paid out and when his race started he did half a lap, into a truck parked at the far side, and him and the bike turned up in Japan a few days later. Him to live a life of luxury and the bike to be dismantled copied and cloned.
But that is globalisation.
Couple of hundred years ago you did everything your self, made your own shoes, clothes tools etc. Then they discovered that it was better for the shoemaker to make shoes and you to stick to your own area of expertise and trade with him. The idea has just expanded to cooperatives, then companies, then multinationals, and now countries.

The reality is most people don't care where it is made and thats the truth. R.M.Williams (Aussie Icon) now probably 50% of goods made in China and selling more than ever.

Gooday,

Next one to look for is "MADE IN INDIA" they are almost as populated as China & very much on the move. So sadly, Made in Australia is a very endangered species, thanks to our successive leaders wanting to strut the world stage.
Cheers boroma604.

Hello All

Well , you have described the situation reasonably accurately , so what to do . Axle says " goodby Australia " , another says " buy gold ". What rubbish !

If you own an Australian manufacturing business you shift your manufacturing base to Asia and produce the same quality product cheaper . You get the profits and bring them back to Australia .Buyers in Australia get the product cheaper . Asia gets employment , "turn key " factories and a leg up towards the first world . Asia can then buy our farm and mine products and support our tourist industry .

What if you don't own a business to shift to Asia . Well actually you do . Your super fund invests in businesses for you . On your behalf they will shift out of Australian manufacturing and will buy Asian businesses . As these are "growth " areas your profit will be very substantial . Also , any of you can invest in the Asian growth by buying Asian shares [ with advice from a licenced investment adviser ].

What about the Australian manufacturing workers ? The mining , transport and infrastructure industries are desparate for your talents , and they will pay better than what you are getting now . Will there be disruption , and even some grief , sure . but there will be more will be many more winners than loosers . The biggest winners will be those who look at the big picture and act on it . This certainly means that workers in many areas of manufacturing need to move on .

To sum up : you have predicted the future , and if you can predict what is going to happen you can take action to benefit from it .

One last word , I shifted to the Pilbara for employment , so don't winge to me if circumstances dictate a move .

Within 20 years most of us will be driving made in China cars and 4Bs. Many of us are driving made in Thailand ones now; some without even knowing it.

Sure, some Chinese made stuff is crap, but a lot of it is pretty good as well and improving. I'll bet some of you are sitting on 'made in China' chairs right now. Some of your lounge furniture (including leather) will be from China as well.

Despite all this, our unemployment rate is the lowest for many years and average wages are the highest ever.

I'm not saying losing our manufacturing industry overseas is good, but it is not as bad as many think.

http://www.energybulletin.net/7707.htmls
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8354.htm
http://www.feasta.org/documents/review2/nunan.htm

I posted these 3 links a while ago. Very interesting.

they have the capacity to manufacture to the highest standards if the customer wants to pay for it. on the other hand they can make the cheapest crud if that is all people want to pay, eg - 3 burner camping stove $ 4, large canvas cabin tent $ 40 .

if anyone saw the show "the men who conqured china" they would have seen yank super funds over there trying to buy up chinese companies flat out. the chinese have a quiet respectful way of doing buisness, and no surprise the yanks kinda clashed with this :-)

they also showed a dairy factory right out in the middle provinces of china, the likes of which i have never seen. it was the most up to date, awsome setup, with plenty of workers and top quality production. Certainly i havent seen any factory here go anywhere close.

China is going to be the most powerful country in the world, with a current trade surplus of 100 billion us a year, climbing rapidly, its got to happen.

Ditto to the changing circumstances view, the days of a job or trade for life have long gone, you have to roll with the opportunities and be prepared to move out of your safety zone, or get left on the scrap heap. My trade - aviation maintenance, is now dead in this country, many of us have moved on, but some wont give up the dream and are suffering for it.