Coronavirus speeds up American suppliers’ exodus from China
The COVID-19 pandemic is giving fresh energy to corporate plans to move supply chains out of China, according to a new survey.
Seventy-six percent of finance chiefs whose companies have manufacturing in China indicated in a survey by Swiss lender UBS that the pandemic has reinforced their company’s goal of moving at least some of that production elsewhere. Thirty-four percent of the more than 450 executives surveyed represent companies with manufacturing in China.
U.S.-based firms weren’t the only ones looking to move: 85 percent of North Asian firms and 60 percent of Chinese manufacturers also said they were planning to move at least some production from the mainland, where COVID-19 was first identified late last year.
Together, the three surveys found up to 30 percent, or $750 billion, of China’s $2.5 trillion of exports might be relocated.