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France–China

China plus one, without leaving China

The strategy is usually explained as relocation. For most European companies it should be read as insurance — and the cheapest version of it never moves a single order.

France → China

The phrase suggests moving production out of China. That is one version, it is expensive, and it is usually the wrong one for a company buying moderate volumes. The useful version is narrower: reduce the cost of a disruption you cannot predict, without giving up the capability you already have.

What you are actually insuring against

Name the risk before choosing the remedy, because the remedies differ. A trade measure on a product category is a customs problem. A single supplier's failure is a supplier problem. A port closure or a freight spike is a logistics problem. A customer refusing Chinese origin is a commercial problem. Only the last two are solved by producing elsewhere; the first two are solved more cheaply.

The ladder, cheapest first

  1. A second supplier in China. Qualified, sampled, holding your drawings, taking a small share of volume so the relationship is real. This solves supplier failure entirely and costs very little.
  2. A second supplier in another province. Same country, different local administration, different port, different labour market. Covers regional disruption without any new commercial learning.
  3. A second country for one product line. Vietnam, Thailand, India or Turkey, on the product where the trade risk actually sits — not the whole range. Real cost, real management time.
  4. Relocation. Rarely the right answer for a company that buys rather than owns its manufacturing.

The honest arithmetic of moving

Moving a product to another country costs you the supplier relationship you spent years building, a new tooling set or a tooling transfer, a fresh qualification and sampling cycle, and a component supply chain that in many categories still runs back to China anyway. That last point is the one people discover late: assembling in Vietnam from Chinese components is a logistics change, not an origin change, and it does not necessarily help with a trade measure.

If your reason for moving is a trade measure, get the origin question answered properly before you commit. Origin follows substantial transformation, not the address on the box, and authorities investigate exactly this.

Keep reading on this.

China sourcingWhen you need a second supplierDual sourcing costs money and attention. The question is not whether it is safer — it is whether the failure it protects against would actually hurt you.China sourcingChina, Vietnam or India: comparing honestlyThe comparison is usually made on unit labour cost, which is the least decisive variable. The supply chain around the factory matters more.China sourcingAnti-dumping duty: the invoice wording that decides what you payTwo importers buying the same goods from the same factory can pay very different duties. The difference is a declaration on the commercial invoice, and getting it wrong is the most expensive clerical error in importing.France–ChinaWhen it goes wrong with a Chinese partner: what your contract decided years earlierThe dispute clause nobody reads at signature determines whether you have a practical remedy or a theoretical one. Most European companies choose the theoretical one.

If this raised a question about your own project, tell us where you are — the first conversation usually clarifies more than a proposal.

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