Economics
Europe Finds It’s Not So Easy to Say Goodbye to Low-Cost China
- EU seeks ‘strategic autonomy’ after pandemic exposed risks
- Germany is also working on its own supply-chain strategy
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European leaders talk of shortening supply chains and curbing China’s “Belt and Road” plan. But on the ground in Italy, Gimmi Baldinini says his designer footwear company is in no position to cut ties with the Chinese.
“Chinese workers have a better hand with gym shoes,” said the chairman of Baldinini, founded by his family in 1910 in northern Italy, where it still has the main production hub for the top segment of his goods. To produce sports shoes, the company relies on a Chinese plant in the Shenzhen area.