ABSTRACT
Economic chal lenges in the form of high employ ment costs in Western compan ies, compared to the large newly developed econom ies of China, Brazil and India and the rapidly devel op ing econom ies of coun tries such as Indonesia, Turkey, South Korea and other Far Eastern coun tries mean there is a constant pres sure on costs. New tech nology improve ments have made it possible to service markets in high price areas of the world from econom ies where the labour supply is plen ti ful and relat ively cheap. The UK and other high cost coun tries in the EU are also exposed to compet i tion from European coun tries where wage costs are lower, but the quality of the work is as high as it is domest ic ally. Arguably, in some coun tries, such as India and China, the quality of both manu fac tur ing and services is better than in the West in some indus tries.
