The Line
A Direct Correlation: China’s Growth Comes At The Expense Of The United States
As China rises, America tumbles. That is the story told by a new report from the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission describing the economic performance of the United States and China since China was admitted into the World Trade Organization in 2001.
In virtually every important economic indicator, China has been growing at exponential rates while the United States suffers death spirals in jobs, income, wealth and prestige. “You can’t fudge the numbers,” says Charles McMillion, president of MBG Information Services and author of the report, China’s Soaring Commercial and Financial Power: How It Is Affecting the U.S. and the World.
For the past 10 years, China’s economy has grown four times faster than the U.S. economy, and the U.S. economy has grown slower than the world economy. An economy that is growing slower than the world economy should have a trade surplus, yet the United States over that period has racked up $6 trillion worth of deficits. China’s surpluses have reached $2 trillion, a huge number for an economy with an annual Gross Domestic Product of $4.5 trillion. China has done this with “fundamentally protectionist policies” that have “broadly undermined…the most productive sectors of U.S. industry,” according to McMillion.
The consequences of the U.S. government’s decisions not to aggressively pursue China’s trade practices have proven tragic for millions of Americans. “We simply could not sustain this level of debt and when something is unsustainable, it stops and sometimes it stops unpleasantly,” says McMillion.
Because of massive trade deficits with China, “every U.S. manufacturing sector lost a substantial portion of its jobs as did virtually every sector that is exposed to imports from China or offshore outsourcing,” according to McMillion. “The broad, once incomparable and dynamic U.S. supply chain of manufactured goods and services is clearly weakening and shifting quickly to China.”
The U.S. textile industry has lost 63 percent of its jobs since 2001. Communications equipment has shed 47 percent of its jobs and motor vehicles and parts has lost 43 percent of its workforce since 2001. That industry has suffered more than $1 trillion in global trade deficits over the past eight years. China has now surpassed the United States as the world’s largest automobile market and is expected this year to surpass Japan as the world’s largest auto producer.
China is out-producing the United States not only in cars but in televisions, cell phones, steel, semiconductors and aluminum. China surpassed the United States as the world’s largest export nation in 2007. The United States ranks behind Germany in that category as well.
In the important “advanced technology products” sector, the United States ran its first trade deficit in 2002, and losses have ballooned since. “Traditional U.S. strengths in aerospace production are now threatened and even semiconductor production — one of China’s key technology weaknesses — is now quickly migrating to China,” says the study.
Things could get even worse for America. “Now, urgent cost-cutting pressures in the economic crisis provide further incentives for U.S. consumers, businesses and government agencies to displace domestic (U.S.) production with cheaper imports or offshore outsourcing even as debt soars,” according to the study.
China is now home to the world’s largest bank, insurance company and telecommunications firm. It has the world’s second-largest oil company and holds the largest reserves of foreign currencies of any nation on earth. Its political leadership is now “lecturing the U.S. on economic management,” notes McMillion.
Industrial production is on a steady upward trajectory in China, but not in the United States. In February of this year, U.S. industrial output declined to a level that was 3 percent lower than in February 2000. It is the first nine-year decline since the period from November 1929 to November 1938, writes McMillion. “There were fewer private sector jobs in the United States in February 2009 than there were in February 2001, for the first eight-year decline in private sector jobs since 1927 - 1935. Net worth per capita is down 6.2 percent from 2000 to 2008. Federal debt is projected to increase by $2.72 trillion in 2009 — roughly three times the total federal debt accumulated in its entire history (including the Civil War, depressions and two world wars) before 1980.”
The response to this economic calamity are warnings against “protectionism from global importers and even from China,” notes McMillion. “It is, perhaps, understandable that large, self-interested global firms, wherever they are incorporated, champion unregulated commerce and finance. But China’s recent, elevated rhetoric aimed at the U.S. is especially hypocritical. Indeed, vigorous ‘protectionism’ is the very core of China’s public policies and of its remarkable recent success. It is the reason China devalued its currency by 50 percent in January 1994, why it has so carefully managed its currency ever since and how it has amassed $2 trillion in foreign currency reserves since the Asian financial crisis of 1998. Protectionism is why China maintains strict government ownership of its banking and financial firms, even as they have gained access to world equity and bond markets.”
China is doing whatever it can to beat the United States in global trade. “It increased export rebates to 17 percent in January 2009 for industrial robots, inertial navigation systems for aviation and 551 other types of high-tech and high value-added electrical and nonelectrical machinery and parts and to 14 percent on exported motorcycles and various appliances,” notes McMillion. These border adjustable taxes are allowed under the rules of the World Trade Organization, and every country in the world uses them to their advantage in international trade, save for the United States.
Small Firms Blame The Wrong Thing For Their Troubles
A survey of 1,000 small business owners by George S. May International found that 45 percent of them are not profitable and that most of those executives are blaming the wrong thing: the bad economy. “The number-one reason that small businesses are not profitable is waste,” says the consulting firm. “Yet all too often, business owners procrastinate or become too complacent with the operations of their business and look for any reason to blame for their lack of profitability other than themselves.”
90,000 Small Manufacturing Companies Are At Risk Of Failure
Tens of thousands of small manufacturing companies in the United States have little idea of what it takes to be successful in an increasingly global competitive environment and risk going out of business in the near future, according to the first-ever large-scale benchmarking study of small manufacturers.
One-quarter of the nation’s 282,000 manufacturing companies — 90,000 in all — are “at risk” due to their inability or unwillingness to adopt any of the strategies essential for success in the global economy, according to the study commissioned by the American Small Manufacturers Coalition. These manufacturers have “serious gaps” in their business models and are “not at or near world-class performance levels in any of the next generation strategies,” says the study entitled Next Generation Manufacturing conducted by the Manufacturing Performance Institute.
The results of the survey of 2,000 companies “are a wake-up call,” says Michael Klosinski, executive director of the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership and chairman of the board of the American Small Manufacturers Coalition. “The consequences of inaction could trigger even more job losses in manufacturing and ultimately, a lower standard of living for all Americans.”
The study looked at six strategies manufacturing companies need to adopt in order to survive the recession and an onslaught of foreign competition. One-third of the companies with annual revenues of less than $10 million are not at world-class levels in any of these business practices, which include customerfocused innovation, human capital development and retention, superior process improvement, supply chain management, sustainable or green production and global engagement.
Only 28 percent of the small manufacturers believe that “global engagement is highly important,” even though overseas markets continue to grow robustly, despite the severe economic downturn in the United States.
“We face a real possibility of surviving the downturn but losing the economic future — if competitors elsewhere in the world are better positioned to capture the next decade’s dynamic market growth,” says the study. “The risk is real and borne out in the results of this study.”
Only 16 percent of the small manufacturers say that “sustainability” and green business practices and products are important to their success over the next five years. “Surprisingly, another 16 percent said it was not important,” says the study.
Another 25 percent of the study participants have not figured out how the leadership of their company will be transferred to the next generation of management over the next five years, a dilemma that could undermine the viability of up to 80,000 small U.S. manufacturing firms.
Manufacturing companies also are not deploying comprehensive measurement systems that would allow them to monitor the implementation of essential business strategies. “Even in one of the most fundamental and easiest-to-measure areas — process improvement — 46 percent of the firms had only ad hoc measurement systems, or worse, none at all,” says the study.
The implications from the study “are huge,” say the sponsors. “The next generation manufacturers of the world will grab market share and reap the profits when a recovery occurs while the unprepared will miss opportunities and lose customers. The regions of the world that are home to next generation manufacturers will gain quality jobs and secure wealth, while those regions with unprepared firms will feel the pain of job losses and a lower quality of life.”
U.S. manufacturers can dig themselves out of their hole, but it’s going to take work. “It’s not too late,” says the study. The United States still has a strong infrastructure and a culture of innovation. “But these advantages can be quickly erased by competitors who are executing next generation strategies better than American firms. The Next Generation Manufacturing study results provide a wake-up call and a direction for restoring America’s manufacturing leadership.”
The 52-page study is located at http://www.small manufacturers.org/picts/NGM-Overview-and-Findings.pdf.
Foreign Investment in the U.S. is not for New Jobs or Factories
Most of the foreign direct investment into the United States in 2008 went to purchase existing companies, with very little being used to establish new production facilities or create new jobs.
Foreigners spent $243 billion buying existing American companies, and only $17.6 billion to establish new U.S. businesses, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Foreign direct investment into the U.S. manufacturing sector accounted for more than half of the total at $141 billion, up from $118 billion in 2007. Foreign firms actively purchased U.S. companies in the beverage, tobacco, chemical and “especially” pharmaceutical industries, says BEA. “Total assets of newly acquired or established businesses were $895.7 billion, up from $411.8 billion in 2007,” says BEA. European investors accounted for 61 percent of all investment in the United States at $158 billion.
The agency stopped collecting data last year on foreign investment that is used to build new facilities. But it says it is developing a new survey to collect data on the construction of new plants and facilities in the United States by existing U.S. affiliates of foreign direct investors. “The new survey is currently being developed and comments or suggestions are welcome; send them to be13@bea.gov,” says the agency.
The FDI report is located at http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/ international/fdi/ 2009/fdi08.htm.
The U.S. Machine Tool Industry Reaches A Nadir; Monthly Sales Dip To Lowest Level Since Depression
The U.S. machine tool industry is in a depression. Sales in April totaled just $97 million, down 41.5 percent from March and a 78 percent drop from the same month in April 2008, when the industry sold $435 million worth of equipment, according to the U.S. Manufacturing Technology Consumption survey conducted by The Association for Manufacturing Technology and the American Machine Tool Distributors’ Association.
April consumption was the lowest one-month total since the AMT and AMDTA started reporting data and it might be the lowest monthly level of machine tool consumption since the Depression. April is usually a strong month for machine tool consumption.
Year-to-date total consumption of machine tools was only $497 million, down 70.7 percent compared to 2008. Those in the industry expect the situation to worsen — if it could possibly be any worse — due to the bankruptcy of General Motors and Chrysler and the typical slowdown experienced during the summer months.
The industry is trying to survive, and the longer the drought in orders, the more difficult it will be for companies to maintain workers and capability. Most companies in the industry typically prepare for slow periods, conserving cash to survive periods when demand tapers off by 4 percent or 5 percent per month. But with orders dropping by 70 percent, “no one was prepared to fall off a cliff,” says Patrick McGibbon, vice president of AMT. “There is no reasonable way to manage down that steep of a slope.” Is it possible for orders to approach zero?
Many of the companies selling machine tools are also exposed to the problems of the automobile industry. The industry has about $2 billion in receivables outstanding for products that have already been shipped. Companies will be hit especially hard if they never receive payment on those systems. “That can be devastating,” says McGibbon.
The Northeast region of the United States, which includes the industrial hubs of Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York and all of New England, purchased only $17.6 million worth of machine tools in April; the South purchased $12.6 million; Midwest purchases totaled $31 million; the Central U.S. purchased $23 million; and the entire Western portion of the United States purchased only $13 million worth of machine tools in April.
U.S. And Foreign Multinationals Don’t Create Any Jobs In United States
Multinational companies shed 1.9 million jobs in the United States between 2000 and 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Employment at “nonbank” multinational companies dropped from 23,885,000 in 2000 to 21,918,000 jobs in 2007, according to the “Summary Estimates for Multinational Companies: Employment, Sales and Capital Expenditures 2007” (BEA 090-14). Foreign multinational companies also reduced employment in the United States during that period, dropping from 5,656,000 jobs in 2000 to 5,254,000, a loss of 402,000 jobs. They did this even though foreign direct investment into the United States surged by $782 billion during that period, mostly to acquire existing U.S. firms.
American multinational companies purchased hundreds of smaller American companies during that period. “Therefore, the net loss of 2.3 million U.S. jobs in multinational firms over the seven years before the current downturn is even worse than it appears because of the greatly expanding scale of multinational activities,” writes Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services.
West Virginia, Other States Lose Thousands of Steel Jobs; Still More Workers in Danger
The United States steel industry is in a tailspin. Capacity utilization is below 50 percent and production this year is on pace to decline to only 52.2 million short tons, down from 91.5 million tons in 2008. Prices are tanking. For hot-rolled steel in coil, the average cost per ton is $392, a decline of 63 percent from a year ago. Cold-rolled sheet is down to $477 per ton, a decline of 59 percent from the peak last year of $1,153.
At a hearing in June by the House of Representatives’ Steel Caucus, here are the words that were used to describe the state of the U.S. steel industry:
- Scary time;
- Defining moment;
- Grim, grim sight;
- Devastation;
- Layoffs;
- Dire situation;
- Fright;
- Travesty;
- Crisis;
- People in the street; and
- Lowest point in the history of the nation.
The industry is in a world of hurt, according to the 15 people who testified before the House Steel Caucus. With the recent downturn, dozens of steel mills have closed or are idle. More are in danger. The industry is facing a stiff challenge from China, which recently restored a 9 percent export rebate program, and is no longer allowing its currency to float against the dollar.
The U.S. steel industry has lost 50,000 jobs since 2000, which has resulted in the loss of an additional 500,000 American jobs, according to Robert Scott of the Economic Policy Institute. Over the past six months, the industry has lost 15,800 jobs, or almost 16 percent of its workforce. The employment situation will likely get worse. “Firms are usually reluctant to lay off workers in the early stages of a downturn as was the case in the 2000 recession when employment lagged far behind the business cycle,” says Scott. “If the current recession recovers very slowly, firms within the steel industry and in many other manufacturing sectors are likely to shed large numbers of additional jobs in the future.”
The United States is no longer much of a global powerhouse in steel production. The United States will account for less than one-tenth of world output this year, and it is a weakling when it comes to exports, ranking in 11th place globally in 2007, when it exported 10.8 million tonnes of steel, as compared to China, which exported six times that amount: 69 million tonnes. In exports, the U.S. ranked behind Taiwan (11.1 million tonnes), Italy (17.9 million tonnes), France (18.1 million tonnes), South Korea (19 million tonnes), Belgium (22 million tonnes), Russia (29.6 million tonnes), Germany (29.9 million tonnes), Ukraine (30.3 million tonnes), Japan (36 million tonnes), and China, leader of the world at 69 million tonnes.
Even though the United States has excess capacity, it hasn’t stopped a surge of imports, which grew from 21 million tonnes in 2003 to 31 million tonnes in 2007, the largest amount of imports of any nation. By comparison, China’s imports have decreased from 43 million tonnes in 2003 to 17 million tonnes in 2007. During the Steel Caucus hearing a half-dozen witnesses representing steel workers described the situation in their own facilities.
The Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp., owned by the Russian company Severstal, has a mill in Steubenville, Ohio. The local United Steel Workers union had 2,500 members in 2000. That is now down to 1,600, and of that number only 160 are currently working. The company’s Steubenville and Mingo Junction plants are closed down. Its coke plant is running at less than half capacity. Another 600 jobs have been lost at its Allenport, Penn., Yorkville and Martins Ferry, Ohio, plants. “These numbers do not include the additional loss of about 200 salaried personnel,” says Bernard Ravasio, former USW local president.
Since 2003, workers at the Severstal plants have reduced their wages by 28 percent to save their jobs. But it hasn’t been enough. “Today we are faced with the realization that our future looks bleak,” said Ravasio. “We are challenged to do whatever is necessary in order for our company to survive.”
The Granite City Plant run by United States Steel was shut down in December 2008 for seven months, and more than 2,000 steelworkers were temporarily laid off. “We have previously experienced downturns in the economy and layoffs, but this is the first time in 130 years of producing quality steel that the complete steel mill was closed,” said USW local 1899 president Dan Simmons. “It is a disaster for our families and communities. No American working family should ever have to face this level of personal economic crisis.” The plant has been restarted “following a recent surge in orders,” says Simmons. On February 10, 2009, 5,000 people marched through the streets of Granite City demanding that Congress pass legislation to preserve U.S. manufacturing jobs. The local union has worked with Granite City and other surrounding city councils and jurisdictions to pass “Buy America” resolutions that require them to use American-made manufactured goods with any money they receive from the federal government’s $878-billion stimulus bill. The city of St. Louis, Mo., also passed a Buy American resolution.
“During the time my members were being laid off and while many of them were losing their health care, we watched train load after train load of 30-inch diameter pipe being unloaded only one mile from the mills,” said Simmons. “This was steel pipe being used for an oil pipeline stretching from Alberta, Canada, to a town close to Granite City. This pipe was made in India. There is something truly wrong in our country when thousands of steelworkers are being laid off including 2,000 workers at Granite City, while government subsidized steel pipe made in India is being unloaded in our backyard.”
United Steel’s Lone Start Steel plant in Texas shut down in December 2008. Steelworkers there have been certified for Trade Adjustment Assistance because they lost their jobs due to steel pipe imports. Of the 1,000 workers at the ArcelorMittal Weirton plant in Weirton, W.Va., 150 have recently been laid off, after 200 employees were permanently fired in 2008. The plant, which employed 10,000 workers in 1983, may not survive the current downturn, according to USW Local 2911 president Mark Glyptis. “Our domestic steel industry is again threatened,” he said. “China is a dangerous threat to our nation’s economy and our industrial base.”
The contagion is spreading beyond the steel industry. Mahle Engine Components, based in Caldwell, Ohio, had 300 employees making bushings and washers for the auto industry. In the early 1980s, the Caldwell plant was known as the “bushing capital of the world,” says Ravasio. The plant shut down on June 30, 2009, and production moved to Mexico.
Iron Ore Industry Suffers Historic Downturn
The industry that supplies American steel companies with iron ore is suffering a deep retrenchment. Iron ore pellet shipments have fallen by 65 percent this year compared to 2008. Significant inventories exist at mines and ports, which will slow a recovery once demand picks back up.
The U.S. industry that produces pellets for blast furnaces is comprised of eight mines, six of which are located in northeast Minnesota and two in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The eight mines have the capacity to produce up to 55 million tons of iron ore pellets. They employ more than 5,000 workers and generate sales of $4 billion. Five of the U.S. mines are owned by Cliffs Natural Resources, the largest producer of iron ore pellets in North America and a merchant producer that has been in business for 162 years. Two mines are operated by U.S. Steel Corp., and one by Arcelor Mittal.
“Production curtailments are having a significant adverse impact on the communities in which we operate,” says John Tuomi, vice president and general manager of Cliffs Natural Resources’ United Taconite plant in Minnesota. Here is the status of the U.S. iron ore industry, as provided by Tuomi to the House Steel Caucus:
- Northshore Mining is operating two of its four pellet furnaces. The plant was totally idled from April to July;
- United Taconite is operating one of two pellet furnaces. The plant was totally idled in May and through the first half of June;
- Hibbing Taconite is operating one of three pellet furnaces. The plant will be totally idled from mid- May until September 1;
- Minntac’s plant was idled from May 10 to May 30. It had a “vacation” shutdown scheduled from June 28 until July 18;
- Keewatin Taconite was idled indefinitely beginning in December 2008;
- Minorca Mine’s plant was idled from May 10 through August 1; and
Empire and Tilden is scheduled to run at 50 percent of production capacity in 2009.
U.S. Military Faces A Far Bigger Foe:
The Impending (Inevitable?) Collapse Of The U.S. Dollar
The Pentagon is consumed with hunting terrorists in the Middle East but there is far greater national security threat that confronts the country that has been ignored: the mismanagement of the U.S. economy and its increasing dependence on foreigners for its sustainment.
At some point — and perhaps very soon — those foreigners could decide not to invest in the United States anymore. The U.S. dollar is increasingly at risk of losing its position as the world’s reserve currency, and when that happens, U.S. military power and leadership will collapse.
“Every successive year’s accumulation of foreign debt (or reduction in the U.S. international investment position) increases the national security risks for the United States,” according to Adam Posen, deputy director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “The dollar’s global role — in trade, invoicing and official reserves and investor portfolios — depends critically on the belief that assets held in dollars will not be subject to sustained devaluation. But as foreign indebtedness rises, this perception of the U.S. currency weakens.”
A strong dollar is vital to America’s military, cultural and ideological strength. It affords the country access to technology and to “key geographic areas.” Foreign countries use the dollar as a means of keeping close ties with the United States. The potential national security problem is not that foreign nations will quickly dump their U.S.-backed securities on global markets causing a financial panic. The real risk is that the United States has already become over-extended and that when it needs foreign credit — as it has for the wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East and to prop up the U.S. economy — it will not be able to borrow. “Too many of such instances mismanaged add up to a longterm erosion of U.S. capabilities and credibility,” writes Posen.
“[The] mutually reinforcing interaction between currency, trade, investment and security relationships — which has played out to the United States’ national security benefit in countries ranging from South Korea to Saudi Arabia and Panama to Poland — also can go into reverse,” Posen writes in a paper on the growing likelihood of the collapse of the dollar due to unsustainable foreign borrowing and growing levels of foreign debt. “Initially, the cumulative nature of these ties means that the United States has more room for error with its currency before things start to unravel, much as the United Kingdom had with the exchange rate ties of its Empire and Commonwealth to the pound persisting even after that nation became a significant foreign debtor. This could explain in part the ability of the dollar to persist in its global role despite the substantial erosion of its net international investment position over the last 40 years. At some point, however, a switch-out of the dollar occasioned by the accumulation of too much foreign indebtedness would start to unwind these other ties. Less faith in the dollar would mean fewer contracts and invoices in dollars, lower investment in dollar assets and diminished trade and financial ties. The elites in the one-time dollar peggers would be economically discouraged from orienting too heavily toward the United States, which could also lead to cultural reorientation and participation in other transnational networks that exclude the United States. And the endogeneity of deepening ties with currency linkages would run in the other direction, away from the dollar.
“The distance between the United States’ current position and such an unwinding scenario is not all that great and gets closer every year that the dollar’s perceived strength is undercut by the country’s trade deficit,” says Posen.
The rise of the euro and the strength of the Asian economies have provided the world with an alternative to the dollar. Further driving the switch away from the dollar is the continuing mismanagement of the U.S. economy — similar to what happened to the United Kingdom in the 1930s “when its balance of payments and monetary discipline flagged when the pound sterling lost its role to the dollar,” according to Posen. “If the existence of an alternative reserve currency is the key factor conditional on the basic factors (economic size and financial liquidity) being in place, then recent events indicate that the time is ripe for an accelerated switch from the dollar to the euro, if not a formal regime change. Such a shift in currency regimes would have significant impact on U.S. national security relationships as well.”
As the value of the dollar starts to deteriorate, European countries would flex their foreign policy muscles, and countries in Asia would focus on their networked markets at the exclusion of the United States. Interest rates on U.S. obligations would rise and “start a vicious circle of allies distancing themselves from the United States,” writes Posen. “It is not just that if the United States were to lose reserve currency dominance military activities would become more difficult to finance — though, of course they would. Major increases in American foreign indebtedness through current account deficits would also erode the willingness of other countries to deepen ties and networks with the United States and would thus create a negative feedback loop between U.S. economic and security capacities.”
The analysis, “National Security Risks from Accumulation of Foreign Debt,” is located at http://www.piie.com/ publications/chapters_preview/4327/04iie4327.pdf.
Federal Spending Is Up, Up And Away
Federal spending is growing at rates not ever seen before. Last year, the federal government increased spending on domestic programs by 9.3 percent, to $2.79 trillion — or $9,184 per person living in the United States, according to the Census Bureau. Not all Americans shared equally in the spending largess. Federal per capita spending was highest for Virginia at $15,256, Maryland $13,829 and Alaska at $13,730. It was lowest in Utah at $6,255, Nevada at $6,638 and Wisconsin at $7,132.
The federal government spent $575 billion in grants in 2008 and $514 billion on procurement (or 18 percent of total federal spending). The cost of the federal workforce was $254 million, or 9 percent of total federal spending, but that included the U.S. Postal Service, which accounted for 25 percent of federal employees. The total cost for federal and military pensions: $103 billion. Veterans benefits for retirement and disability totaled $39 billion. Spending for unemployment compensation was $40 billion.
To view the Census Bureau’s “Consolidated Federal Funds Report For 2008” go to http://www.census.gov/govs/cffr/.
International Standards Organization Pats Itself On The Back: Still Going Strong
The economic meltdown did not impact the Geneva, Switzerland-based International Standards Organization (ISO). “As the crisis hit in 2008, falling consumption and slim order books made reduced activity the norm, except for ISO, undermining the confidence of public and private sector stakeholders in the organization and the global relevance of its standards,” says the first line in the ISO’s 2008 annual report released in June.
Last year, ISO published 1,230 standards comprising 69,303 pages, up from 1,105 standards comprising 54,477 pages in 2007. The organization had revenue of $35.2 million euro in 2008, down from $36 million euro in 2007.
ISO has 157 national standards bodies as members and 3,183 technical bodies. It has a full-time staff of 500 people. Last year, it launched two new technical committees to develop standards for solid biofuels and industrial furnaces. It launched seven product committees to develop standards in network services billing, product recalls, road-traffic safety management, energy management, consumer product safety, cross-border trade of second-hand goods and anti-counterfeiting tools.
China Sends In Experts To Upgrade Manufacturing
China is providing 923 manufacturing companies in its Guangdong Province with the services of 6,000 experts to provide them with a “technological overhaul,” according to a report in the May 1 China Daily. Under the Science and Technology Commissioners’ Action in Enterprise program, the experts will be assigned to the companies as the government pushes to upgrade its manufacturing-based industry, says the report. The province has grown rapidly in the last 30 years because of numerous labor-intensive manufacturing businesses, but it now wants to restructure its economy to one based on technology.
Among the experts are 1,087 professors and 5,000 university graduates known as “science and technology commissioners.” According to Song Hail, vice governor of Guangdong, quoted in China Daily, the program “will not only benefit the 923 enterprises but also indirectly assist more than 10,000 enterprises to transform and upgrade their industries.”
