This edition of Views from the Top in The Business Times asked CEOs where they would site their factory if they were an international manufacturer. Here are Achieve CEO Joshua Yim’s views and the rationale for his decision:

“Besides the ease of getting workers cheaply, the other key deciding factor on where to site a factory for me is the stability of the country’s government. Investors usually look for political stability and that is why Singapore has always attracted a lot of foreign direct investment into the country.

Take Thailand as another example. While labour is not that cheap, it is still lower compared with most developed countries. However, Thailand’s prolonged political turmoil is very disruptive and crippling to businesses operating there and results in a loss of confidence by investors. Thus, even if business costs are generally low in a particular country, there may be other prices to pay due to political instability.

Being in the business of recruitment and human resources, my other concern would naturally be whether the country’s infrastructure in terms of its labour policies are supportive of the management team running the operations on the ground. Is it easy to secure workers and deploy them as factory managers there, for instance? If the hiring laws are such that I would encounter a lot of difficulty in securing the right workers, this would pose a problem and thus should be an important consideration too.”

Source : The Business Times, 14 July 2014