Not so long ago moving inland was seen as a universal panacea for manufacturers worried by rising wages and land costs in China's coastal regions.
But after sampling life in China's interior, some Hong Kong-based factory owners say that the pool of available labour is shrinking in many interior cities as well. When lower standards of quality and higher transport costs are mixed in, inland regions look less and less like the manufacturing paradise some people thought they would be.
Willie Fung Wai-yiu, chairman of Top Form International, the world's biggest contract brassiere maker, said wages at the company's inland factory in Longnan county, Jiangxi province, have risen at least 35 per cent in the past 18 months.
'Three years ago, when we advertised for 50 workers, hundreds of people lined up outside the gates,' Mr Fung said. 'Today, you get one or two dozen. That makes you think, what will happen in two years' time?'
Only three years ago Guangdong had more labour than it needed, but the situation changed very quickly. 'We'll be repeating the problems we saw in Guangdong. We've seen it happen in Hong Kong, then Guangdong and now it's starting to happen even in Jiangxi,' Mr Fung said.
Tak Shun Technology Group, a Hong Kong-listed manufacturer of electronic calculators, found its expansion in the northern province of Henan far from smooth. The company opened a factory in Huaxian county in February last year.