More Companies See Advantage to Manufacturing in the U.S.

By Harold L. Sirkin, BusinessWeek

---

Photograph by Andy Manis/Bloomberg  Master Lock’s manufacturing plant in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

It began as a ripple and is becoming a powerful wave.

I’m talking about the reverse migration of manufacturing from China to the U.S.—known as reshoring—that appears to be gaining momentum.

At first the evidence was primarily anecdotal, as companies such as NCR (NCR), All-Clad Metalcrafters, Master Lock (FBHS), Peerless Industries (PMFG), and Ford Motor (F) announced plans to shift certain manufacturing operations from China to the U.S.

Now, as more companies make similar announcements, what began as a trickle is building into an unmistakable trend. Further evidence can be seen in a new BCG survey of U.S.-based executives, more than half of whom told us they already have plans to bring production back to the U.S. or are actively considering it.

What we learned from the more than 200 survey respondents was eye-opening (though not surprising): Some 54 percent of the respondents told us they’re planning to reshore or seriously considering it. Asked the same question in February 2012, just 37 percent of respondents were considering such plans.

The new survey also found a significant increase in the percentage of companies that already have taken steps to shift production back to the U.S. On this question, 21 percent of respondents said they’re “actively doing this” or will do so “in the next two years.” This was more than double the 2012 percentage.

The main factors driving the reshoring decision were labor costs (cited by 43 percent of respondents), proximity to customers (35 percent) and quality (34 percent). Other factors included access to skilled labor, transportation costs, and supply-chain efficiencies.

The findings confirm that reshoring is more than just a buzzword; it’s a fact of life.

When executives consider the total cost of production for many products, especially those intended for the U.S. and other developed markets, the advantage now often shifts to the U.S. Labor costs, workplace flexibility, energy costs, productivity, proximity to market—they all add up to a growing U.S. advantage, which means more and more companies will continue to shift production to the U.S.

This means jobs. As we explained in August in one of our recent “Made in America, Again” reports, Behind the American Export Surge, reshored production from China, combined with production that’s being shifted from Europe and Japan to the U.S., could create 2.5 million to 5 million new factory and related service jobs by 2020.

As China gradually shifts its manufacturing emphasis from the export market to the domestic market, reshoring is likely to have less impact on the Chinese economy than it will on the U.S. economy. Assuming the Chinese economy doesn’t tank—and there’s no reason to believe it will—Chinese factories will have plenty to do to keep up with growing consumer demand at home and elsewhere in Asia.

And don’t forget: The fact that it makes good economic sense to reshore some manufacturing doesn’t mean it makes good economic sense to reshore all manufacturing. Chinese factories are not about to go silent. As the global economy continues its slow-but-steady recovery, there will be plenty of work to go around.

Harold L. Sirkin is a Chicago-based senior partner of The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and co-author, most recently, of The U.S. Manufacturing Renaissance: How Shifting Global Economics Are Creating an American Comeback (Knowledge@Wharton, November 2012).

Factory Rebirth Fizzles in U.S. as Work Shipped Overseas

By Thomas Black – Bloomberg

Randy Webb sees scant evidence of a U.S. manufacturing rebound in the Ohio plant where he’s fixed aircraft electronics for 25 years. Honeywell International Inc. (HON) is closing the shop in 2014 as it expands such work overseas.

Webb is among 80 employees poised to lose their jobs in Strongsville, Ohio, outside Cleveland, near where General Electric Co. (GE) will shut a lighting factory in favor of production in Hungary. Delphi Automotive Plc (DLPH) is sending parts assembly to Mexico from Flint, Michigan, and Eaton Corp. (ETN) will make extra-large hydraulic cylinders in the Netherlands, not Alabama.

Higher taxes and employee benefits boost U.S. manufacturing costs to 9 percent more than the average of the country’s nine-largest trading partners, according to a Sept. 3 report by a team of JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

“Manufacturing is clearly on the downswing,” said Webb, 49, who was told in April that the Strongsville Service Center would close. “Everybody I know is jumping to the service industry or taking some other kind of job.”

The U.S. industrial comeback, an idea embraced by President Barack Obama and some economists as 12 years of factory-job losses gave way to three annual gains, is now sputtering. Even with nonfarm payrolls up 1.1 percent in 2013 to 136.1 million, manufacturing has stagnated at less than 12 million. Factories added more than 500,000 positions after falling in February 2010 to the lowest since 1941.

That left the factory workforce through August about 13 percent smaller than the 13.7 million when the U.S. fell into recession in December 2007. In 2000, the tally was 17 million.

“I know all of us are concerned about manufacturing, but it’s not going to come home to the degree that it used to be,” Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said at a Sept. 5 event in Dallas.

Cost Disadvantage

Higher taxes and employee benefits boost U.S. manufacturing costs to 9 percent more than the average of the country’s nine-largest trading partners, according to a Sept. 3 report by a team of JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts.

For GE, higher U.S. expenses mean sending assembly of high-intensity discharge lamps to Budapest from a factory with 160 workers in Ravenna, Ohio.

“This particular product that was at Ravenna was made more cost competitively in Hungary,” said Christopher Augustine, a spokesman for Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE.

Hungary is GE’s global production center for that product line, just as fluorescent-lamp output is centered elsewhere in Ohio, in Bucyrus, Augustine said. Many of those lights go to U.S. customers, he said.

Expanding Abroad

Honeywell has cut its U.S. workforce by 5,000 positions to 52,000 since 2007 while adding 15,000 employees abroad, for a total of 80,000 outside the country.

Strongsville is one of two avionics repair shops closing in the U.S., along with one in Irving, Texas, said Steve Brecken, a Honeywell spokesman. U.S. operations are being consolidated in Renton, Washington, and Wichita, Kansas, and part of the work is being transferred to a U.S.-based contractor, he said. Morris Township, New Jersey-based Honeywell is expanding outside the U.S. at shops in Singapore and Shanghai to meet rising demand there, Brecken said.

“The world has opened up and it’s providing more choices for manufacturers that are global companies and supply a global customer base,” said Stephen Stanley, chief economist for Pierpont Securities LLC in Stamford, Connecticut. “We’re going to continue to see a globalization of manufacturing.”

Obama’s efforts to nurture a manufacturing comeback include the National Export Initiative he announced in March 2010, a month after factory payrolls slid to 11.5 million. The goal was to double U.S. exports and create 2 million jobs, with programs such as financing for small- and medium-sized businesses to boost sales overseas.

No Easing

In February, he laid out a four-point plan to revitalize manufacturing in his State of the Unionaddress, including cutting the tax rate on manufacturers to 25 percent from a top federal corporate rate of 35 percent. Seven months later, tax changes remain stalled in a gridlocked Congress.

The National Association of Manufacturers, often at odds with Obama over policy issues, agrees with him on the prospect of a factory rebirth.

With cheap natural gas from U.S. shale deposits and increased automation reducing labor’s share of manufacturing costs, U.S. factories can compete with those in low-wage countries, said Chad Moutray, the Washington-based group’s chief economist.

“People want to locate and invest here because they want to sell to us,” Moutray said. “Multinationals may be investing overseas, but they’re also investing here.”

Payrolls, Productivity

One discouraging sign that manufacturing employment is recovering: the 13 percent gap between factory payrolls now and before the recession occurred amid a rebound in output, said Tim Quinlan, a Wells Fargo & Co. economist in Charlotte, North Carolina. Industrial productiontrails a 2007 pre-recession high by only 1.9 percentage points.

“Whereas I do see manufacturing underpinning overall U.S. economic growth, I don’t see hiring in the factory sector underpinning growth in jobs,” Quinlan said. “It will be a long, long time before we get back to pre-recession highs for employment in the factory sector.”

With manufacturing employment up only 0.1 percent through August, job growth is just about keeping pace with losses such as the pending shutdown in November of Delphi’s Flint factory, with 300 employees.

The work is being moved to Mexico, according to a Trade Adjustment Assistance petition filed with the U.S. Labor Department. Tom Wickham, a spokesman for General Motors Co. (GM), which supplied unionized hourly workers for the plant supervised by Troy, Michigan-based Delphi, confirmed the closing.

Eaton, Jabil

Eaton said in a petition that it shuttered its hydraulic-cylinder plant in Decatur, Alabama, in July. Scott Schroeder, a spokesman for Dublin, Ireland-based Eaton, said consolidating production boosts efficiency. In Tempe, Arizona, contract electronics manufacturer Jabil Circuit Inc. (JBL)will eliminate about 500 positions with a factory closing.

“We are in the process of moving several assemblies to other Jabil facilities in Mexico and Asia in order to reduce labor costs and meet our customers’ pricing expectations,” the St. Petersburg, Florida-based company said in a Trade Adjustment Assistance petition. Beth Walters, a Jabil spokeswoman, said by e-mail that the plant will close within a year.

Webb, who said he helped train Honeywell employees from abroad who now perform work once done in the U.S., can relate to displaced workers at other U.S. manufacturers. If he can’t find a job near Strongsville with equal pay, he may pursue a long-held desire to become a high school teacher.

In the meantime, he goes to work each day amid the strain of a months-long wind-down before what may be the end of his career in avionics repair.

“It’s like dying a death of a thousand cuts here,” Webb said, “because it’s going so slowly.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Thomas Black in Dallas at tblack@bloomberg.net

Trade Gap in U.S. Narrows to Lowest Level Since October 2009

By Lorraine Woellert – Bloomberg

The U.S. trade deficit narrowed more than forecast in June to the lowest level since October 2009 as crude oil imports declined and American companies shipped more goods abroad.

The gap shrank 22.4 percent to $34.2 billion from a revised $44.1 billion in May that was smaller than previously estimated, the Commerce Department reported today in Washington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of 72 economists called for a $43.5 billion deficit. Exports increased to an all-time high while imports fell to a three-month low.

The gap shrank 22.4 percent to $34.2 billion from a revised $44.1 billion in May that was smaller than previously estimated, the Commerce Department reported today in Washington. Photographer: Tim Rue/Bloomberg

The smaller trade bill, which reflected increased U.S. shipments of capital goods and petroleum, shows second-quarter growth was stronger than initially estimated. At the same time, a projected pickup in consumer and corporate demand indicates it may be difficult for the deficit to improve further.

“This is exceptionally good news,” said Millan Mulraine, director of U.S. rates research at TD Securities USA LLC in New York. “This could suggest GDP could be increased by as much as 1 percent.” Still, the level of the trade deficit is “unlikely to be sustained given the weak global growth.”

Stocks fell for a second day as retailers posted results that disappointed investors. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index declined 0.6 percent to 1,696.17 at 10:46 a.m. in New York.

Bloomberg survey estimates ranged from trade deficits of $38 billion to $48.3 billion. The Commerce Department initially reported a $45 billion shortfall for May.

Record Exports

Exports increased 2.2 percent to $191.2 billion, boosted by sales of petroleum products and capital goods including engines and telecommunications equipment. American companies also provided foreign customers with a record value of services.

Imports declined 2.5 percent to $225.4 billion. Refineries in the U.S. imported less petroleum, and demand for consumer goods made overseas declined.

Increased domestic energy production is helping reduce America’s dependence of foreign crude oil. The import figures reflected 234.3 million barrels of oil, down from 240.5 million barrels in the prior month. The value of crude oil purchases decreased to $22.7 billion from $23.3 billion in the previous month.

The trade shortfall excluding petroleum shrank to a three-month low of $34.4 billion in June from $41.3 billion.

Inflation-Adjusted

After eliminating the influence of prices, the trade deficit narrowed to $43.1 billion from $51.9 billion.

The economy expanded at a 1.7 percent annualized rate from April through June after a 1.1 percent pace in the first quarter, the Commerce Department said July 31.

Today’s report indicates that the 0.8 percentage point drag from trade, which was the most in almost three years, on second-quarter growth will be wiped away.

Consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of the economy, grew at a 1.8 percent pace last quarter.

Economic growth is projected to average 2.5 percent at an annualize pace in the second half of the year, up from 1.4 percent in the first six months, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of 68 economists from July 5 to July 10.

Second Half

Recent reports are pointing to improved second-half growth. U.S. service industries expanded in July at the fastest pace in five months, the Institute for Supply Management reported yesterday, with construction companies, retailers and financial firms reporting a pickup in business. That report followed data last week that showed manufacturing advanced at the fastest rate in more than two years.

Automakers are on pace for their best showing in six years as job gains boost confidence and consumers replace older vehicles. Cars and light trucks sold at a 15.6 million annualized rate in July and 15.9 million the prior month, the strongest back-to-back readings since late 2007, according to figures from Ward’s Automotive Group.

A stronger U.S. currency will make American shipments abroad more expensive. The Dollar Index, used by IntercontinentalExchange Inc. to track the greenback against currencies of six U.S. trading partners, has climbed 3.5 percent since reaching a low on Feb. 1, through yesterday.

The trade gap with China, the world’s second-biggest economy, narrowed to $26.6 billion from $27.9 billion, today’s report showed. The trade deficit with the European Union, Canada andMexico also shrank.

Overseas Demand

For some companies such as Eaton Corp. (ETN), which makes electrical equipment for buildings, demand is being restrained by federal budget cuts and weaker overseas markets. Dublin-based Eaton last week lowered its 2013 growth forecast for U.S. nonresidential construction to 2 percent to 3 percent from an earlier projection of 4 percent to 5 percent at the beginning of the year.

“We think the global economy is trending up slowly,” Sandy Cutler, chairman and chief executive officer at Eaton, said on an Aug. 2 conference call. “The U.S. is plodding. Europe may be at a bottom, but we see little prospect for a lot of vigor in a prospective recovery at this point. We do not see a major catalyst for a change in the second half of this year.”

Growth, Cutler said, is concentrated more “on the consumer side, not the industrial side.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Lorraine Woellert in Washington atlwoellert@bloomberg.net

The Breakdown of the BRICs

We at Fluent In Foreign have been recommending to our readers to look beyond the BRICS for over a year. Now Bloomberg sums up latest market events, which fully validate our recommendations.

Bloomberg/Business Week

Is the decade-long BRIC dream over?

Bloomberg reports that capital flight from Brazil, Russia, India, and China has sent their bonds, currencies, and stocks down together for the first time since 2006.

Since 2003, when Goldman Sachs (GS) predicted this league of developing economies would join the ranks of the world’s biggest, the MSCI BRIC Index has returned about 227 percent; this year, however, it’s trailing the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index by the most since 1998. From 2005 through last year, investors piled $52 billion into BRIC mutual funds, according to research firm EPFR. This year investors have yanked $13.9 billion from the category.

Anything BRIC seems to be struggling. Last quarter the MSCI BRIC Index fell 12 percent; BRIC government bonds lost an average of 0.6 percent, and their currencies fell 4.1 percent against the dollar. That’s the first time emerging-market stocks, bonds, and currencies have dropped together, according to data compiled Bloomberg going back seven years. China is looking at its weakest annual expansion in more than two decades. India’s current-account deficit has pushed the rupee to an all-time low. Oil’s drop has slowed Russia’s economy for five straight quarters, and Brazil is dealing with poor growth, rising inflation, and street protests.

“Every decade there’s a theme that captures investors’ imagination—the 1970s was about gold, 1980s was all about Japan, and 1990s was about technology companies,” Ruchir Sharma, the head of emerging markets at Morgan Stanley (MS) Investment Management, told Bloomberg News. “Last decade it was about the BRICs. That theme has basically run its course.”

“After years of strong growth, the BRICs are beginning to run into speed bumps,” International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard said at a Tuesday press conference.

The selloff could be overdone. The MSCI BRIC Index’s 17 percent drop this year has left it trading at 1.2 times net assets, a 36 percent discount to the MSCI All-Country World Index. This for a group of economies that represented 62 percent of global growth last year, compared with just 11 percent a decade ago.

EBay Focuses on $195 Billion Global Emerging Markets Push

By Danielle Kucera , Bloomberg

EBay Inc. (EBAY), owner of the biggest Internet marketplace, is boosting staff in its emerging-markets group by 50 percent this year, seeking to win loyalty in burgeoning regions where online sales may top $195 billion.

The team tasked with stepping up sales growth in Russia, Latin America and China has reached 140 employees and may increase by about 60 more people by the end of 2013, said Wendy Jones, who oversees geographic expansion and cross-border trade at San Jose, California-based EBay. The effort is “incredibly well-funded” and plans to focus first on Russia, she said.

The EBay Inc. logo is displayed at the entrance to the company’s headquarters in San Jose. EBay is reaching into developing countries as the company competes with Amazon.com for the loyalty of merchants selling on its online store. Photographer: David PaulMorris/Bloomberg

EBay Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe is betting on regions of the world where consumers and merchants are starting buy and sell more over the Internet. The company predicts that 25 percent of its users will be in developing countries at the end of 2015, up from about 5 percent in 2012, as EBay works to narrow Amazon.com Inc.’s lead in global e-commerce.

“There is still a significant, untapped opportunity out there,” said Dan Kurnos, an analyst at Benchmark Co., who recommends buying EBay shares. “If EBay doesn’t address it, someone else will.”

EBay ended 2012 with 6 million active users in Brazil, Russia,India and China, with $3.2 billion in sales to consumers there. It had more than 112 million active users worldwide.  READ MORE

Myanmar’s Corruption Legacy Shadows Opening to Investors – Dealing with Corruption Series part 1

Last week’s sold out What Lies Beyond the BRICS event produced by the Princeton Council on World Affairs and Fluent In Foreign LLC., examined whether the time to invest in the booming BRICS markets has passed and may be it’s time to look at the next wave of emerging smaller markets around the globe.  The event featured representatives of eight countries with four – Canada, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Slovenia making very appealing and informative presentations.  In the exclusive announcement, the itinerary and the dates of the upcoming Global Business Conference at Sea, which will feature participation of 40 countries and over 2,500 international investors, exporters, financiers, franchisors and buyers were revealed

This week’s two posts illustrate both the slowing economy in China as an example of the BRICS’ cooling off cycle, and the challenges of investing in some of the hottest new markets such as Myanmar.  The article below is a very good illustration of issues, which exist in many emerging markets and how these issues counterbalance fantastic business opportunities available there.

In the next few months, Princeton Council on World Affairs and Fluent In foreign will present a series of events titled: They WILL be Asking You to Pay Bribes, or How to Deal With Corruption in International Business.  The dates for the upcoming events and their venues will be announced shortly.

Myanmar’s Corruption Legacy Shadows Opening to Investors

Bloomberg News, May 2012

For Zaw Naing, 40, who sells satellite imagery to Myanmar’s government, teeing off on the golf course with any of the former generals running the country is essential to sealing deals. Sometimes, he has to do more.

Naing, managing director of Credent Technology in Yangon, says he puts aside a “small percentage” to buy goodwill and “pay back not to individuals, but to the community, the society or the organization.”

“We have to look at all the culture, all the history; Those organizations want something back,” Naing said in a May 2 interview in his office. “How can you eradicate a culture overnight?”

Such business practices pose a hurdle for U.S. companies that may be looking to enter the Myanmar market after President Barack Obama yesterday eased an American investment ban. The U.S. continues to bar doing business with companies linked to the military, which ran the country for five decades, and is watching to see how political and economic reforms develop in the nation also known as Burma.

“We say to American business: Invest in Burma and do it responsibly, be an agent of positive change,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said yesterday in Washington.

Perhaps more than anywhere else, golf in Myanmar separates the elite from rest. A legacy from British colonial rule, knowing how to wield a golf club and who to share a cart with is key to doing business in the long-isolated country that ranks among the poorest and most corrupt in the world.

‘Personal Relationships’

“It’s all about personal relationships; they are still very important,” said Naing, who displays golfing trophies and a framed certificate from Michigan State University, where he studied international development on a U.S.-funded Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship.

American companies in oil and gas, mining and financial services — now free to hunt for investment opportunities –will need to bear in mind that personal relationships in Myanmar may involve more than golf.

Only two nations — Somalia and North Korea — are more corrupt than Myanmar, according to Berlin-based Transparency International, which ranks 183 countries based on surveys of entrepreneurs and analysts on their perception of corruption. “We do have such things: bribery, corruption, nepotism, kickbacks,” said Naing.

Still, he said, the practice of “giving back” is something of a way of life. “Maybe I am working with the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation. I give back to the ministry so that they know that Zaw Naing gives back, but not to a person, not the minister,” he explained. “Sometimes the government budgets are not enough to keep the offices alive to have some paper for the copiers.”

Former Insiders

One of the biggest challenges to Myanmar’s year-old elected civilian government is how to free commerce from the former military-regime insiders who’ve had a lock on the country’s resources, such as oil, timber and gems.

President Thein Sein, 67, the general-turned-civilian who began opening Myanmar to the West after he took office 14 months ago, is aware of the corruption that’s blighting efforts to develop a country that aspires to be the next Asian Tiger. Still, his economic team sees no quick fixes.

“We don’t expect this problem can be eradicated immediately, but we try our best to control, to medicate this problem,” his top political adviser, Ko Ko Hlaing, said in a May 2 interview in Yangon.

No Water, No Electricity

Myanmar is drawing interest as a resource-rich country with enormous potential now that it is embracing reform. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the US-ASEAN Business Council, and the National Foreign Trade Council applauded the Obama administration’s action.

“Myanmar’s leadership has made it clear that it welcomes American investment, and in many ways sees it as preferable to that of some of our competitors” because of U.S. standards for corporate responsibility, the three groups said in a statement yesterday.

In 1962, the start of military rule, Myanmar “was the single richest country in Asia,” investor Jim Rogers, the chairman of Rogers Holdings, said at a conference in Singapore Feb. 22. “Now it’s the poorest because it’s been so badly managed in the past 50 years. But they are changing that now.”

“If I could put all of my money into Myanmar, I would,” said Rogers, who predicted a global commodities rally in 1999.

For overseas businessmen trying to establish a presence in Myanmar, potential bribery isn’t the only obstacle. Investors are required by the government to bring at least $500,000, half of it in cash and the rest in assets, according to Thura Swiss Ltd., a Myanmar-based consultancy.

‘Quite Challenging’

The lack of modern infrastructure and financial systems also present a barrier. The U.S. move to ease sanctions was also criticized by New York-based Human Rights Watch, citing the prevalence of cronyism and ethnic strife.

“In a country such as Myanmar, with little or no infrastructure, everything from water to electricity is an issue in terms of just setting up shop,” said Howard Kuan, 29, from Hong Kong, the manager of a Chinese garment factory on the outskirts of Yangon. “Everything is quite challenging.”

Only about a quarter of the population has access to electricity, the Asian Development Bank said in a report last month. One in 30 people has a mobile phone, and less than 1 percent of the population has an Internet connection, Tokyo- based Nomura Holdings Inc. (8604) said in a March 14 report.

Fresh Paint

The fresh coat of white paint on Kuan’s new clothing factory is a contrast to the poverty just outside the gates, where stray dogs sniff garbage along muddy roads with open sewers and a line of aspiring workers stares up at a board with job postings. They peek inside at rows of sewing machines in a well-aired room.

To operate his machines, Kuan had to get generators to cope with power outages that can last six hours a day. He also had to find a way to pump and filter water. When he arrived to face all these problems, he couldn’t make calls or send an e-mail.

“When we first came, we couldn’t buy SIM cards for cell phones,” he said in a May 2 interview. “As people here without any friends, at first we were left without communication with the outside world. Going online was even more impossible.”

Making the right friends was necessary to navigate a series of unwritten rules in a country with no code of law.

Over a cigarette and a can of Coke, Kuan recalled that two weeks after the factory opened, some “local government types started knocking on doors” and asked him for licenses that neither he nor his lawyer, a former judge, thought were needed. He paid them what they asked to obtain the paper document.

‘No Receipt’

“Now whether they took that money we don’t know, but the bottom line is as business people, these are expenditures we have to make,” Kuan said. “And there really is no receipt or anything official. We are here to stay, so we pay the sums just to make sure that what is due is due, and that in the end we are not going to be illegal here.”

To reward Myanmar for beginning the transition from dictatorship toward democracy, the U.S. eased sanctions with some reservations.

“We continue to have concerns, including remaining political prisoners, ongoing conflict and serious human rights abuses in ethnic areas,” the administration said in a statement. The European Union has suspended most of its sanctions for a year.

Still, for the Burmese it’s the Americans that count.

Even days before the U.S. action, Zaw Naing says his phone was ringing off the hook with American companies such as GeoEye Inc. (GEOY), a Herndon, Virginia-based satellite-image provider, interested in partnering with him.

“American sanctions are very important, very influential,” he said. “I have been telling Americans since 2008 that this government is serious about change. You believe me?”

To contact the reporter on this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson in United Nations at fjackson@bloomberg.net