Article in the International Herald Tribune about Fiat and Volkswagon considering moving some of their manufacturing to the US. The article sites the weak dollar as the driver. Key quote:
"Currency becomes a critical profitability lever when you're a globalized business," said John Hoffecker, managing director of AlixPartners, a consulting and reorganization firm based in Southfield, Michigan. "The way that you keep currency out of it is by having manufacturing facilities around the world. With the U.S. being such a good market to play in, I think you'll see more and more companies put facilities here."
While currency rates fluctuate, the dollar has fallen pretty consistently against the Euro for the last 5 years. This is true for most other free floating currencies. Given this long term decline, companies are starting to look at moving manufacturing to the US - and US firms are starting to move manufacturing back to the US. We've posted in the past about the possibility of manufacturing picking up the US. The falling dollar is making this scenario more likely.
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