As the US trade war hastens the surge of factories moving out of China and into Vietnam, some Chinese manufacturers are urging their peers to think twice before relocating, with one footwear factory owner having abandoned a 5 million yuan (US$728,000) factory in the Southeast Asian country after just one year.
Zhou Ping has run a footwear factory in Dongguan, a city in China’s manufacturing heartland of Guangdong, since the early-2000s. But in May 2017, Zhou and another factory owner took a two-year contract on a 1,200 square metre (12,916 sq ft) facility in Binh Duong province, just north of Ho Chi Minh City, with the intention of producing accessories for a US fashion brand.