Next pit stop for nearshoring - Central and Eastern Europe
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NEXT PIT STOP FOR NEARSHORING - CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
Central and eastern European economies are poised to be top picks for multinational corporations looking to reduce their global footprint and streamline their supply chains closer to home.
Having learned from their mistakes during the pandemic, companies mainly based out of western Europe, but also out of the U.S., are looking to Poland, Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary as options when setting up new operations, analysts say.
Furthermore, the prolonged Ukraine-Russia conflict has inclined the region to look to the west as relatively friendly, and away from China and Russia. The only exception might be Hungary.
"We are beginning to see signs of nearshoring. The proximity to Western markets are very important and clearly eastern Europe does have a very good advantage," said Jakob Ekholdt Christensen, senior EM strategist at BankInvest.
Nearshoring and friendshoring in the recent past stemmed from U.S. companies moving investments to Latin America and the Caribbean from Asia.
But why CEE?
ING analysts believe that in addition to proximity, these four economies have an advantage in terms of cheaper costs of production, improved infrastructure, skilled workforce and government support.
For instance, hourly labour costs in 2023 in the four countries stood lower than the wider European Union average, according to Eurostat as quoted by ING.
However, they still remain higher than Mexico and China.
Still, Padhraic Garvey, regional head of research for the Americas at ING Financial Markets said "gone are the days where it was a no-brainer to locate in China. A combination of the pandemic and the Russian-Ukraine war has just caused many corporates on a global scale to pause for thought when it comes to the location of manufacturing plants."
Sectors that are expected to have been beneficiaries include technology, manufacturing and business process out-sourcing with several MNC's such as Microsoft MSFT.O, Alphabet's GOOGL.O Google and LG Energy Solution 373220.KS expanding their operations or looking to set up new units.
Further, governments across these region have played a vital role in incentivising the presence of large MNC's by offering tax breaks, grants for capital investment and subsidies for R&D activities.
Local equity indexes of Poland .WIG, Czech .PX, Romania .BETI and Hungary .BUX have risen between 11% and 20% year-to-date, compared with MSCI's eastern European equity index's .MIEM00000PUS 6.5% increase.
Currencies in the region have come under pressure as most local central banks have kicked off their policy easing cycles, however a recent Reuters poll showed analysts expect the Polish zloty EURPLN= and Hungarian forint EURHUF= to recoup recent losses over the next six months.
(Johann M Cherian, Siddarth S)
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