On December 13th 2022, our CEO Renaud joined Global Sources‘ Tom McGrenery for a fireside chat about some of the broad Asian manufacturing trends we’ve seen recently, as well as the new regulatory frameworks for manufacturing, new technologies or services. They also cover some of the new American and European regulations that are coming up and are likely to impact importers, and what steps you should take right now in your business to tackle them.
The discussion went out live, but in case you missed it here’s the video that you can now play at your convenience and enjoy:
- Concerns over manufacturing in China given what many importers perceive as a more unstable and risky environment there now.
- Where to move manufacturing to outside of China if diversifying one’s supply chain. Vietnam’s capacity is quite full and they lack export-ready manufacturing units. India is picking up the slack and developing its capacity now and is a good option for many product types.
- Upcoming regulations affecting manufacturers in the EU and USA – in particular the drive for more transparency over one’s supply chain including the American UFLPA (Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act), EU MDR (Medical Devices Regulation) 2021, EU EPR Extended Producer Responsibility 2022 (a company must be paid to recycle the products at end of life), and Recycled Plastic Food Contact Materials 2022 (documenting the manufacturing process of these materials). They also talk about the EU ban on modern slavery, ESG reporting for investor-driven improvement requirements, and the EU Ecodesign regulation and which product types it targets soon.
They also share these tips on steps you can take now to deal with the above:
- Gather supply chain information (key materials and components and where they’re from, etc) for a future lifecycle assessment
- Include checkpoints in your supplier qualification process that penalise suppliers who won’t provide supply chain/product/material information so you can weed them out
- Gain an understanding of the environmental impact of your products (energy usage, materials used, recyclability, where they are made so modern slavery is avoided, etc)
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Let us know if this video has made you think of any questions about manufacturing in China or elsewhere in Asia or something more specific about getting your product made.
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