Foxconn Technology will transform its south China manufacturing hub into an engineering base and move 200,000 jobs to cheaper inland provinces in a further sign that the region’s days as a low-end production centre are numbered.

富士康科技(Foxconn Technology)将把华南生产中心改造成工程基地，并将20万个工作岗位转移至成本更低的内陆省份，这进一步表明华南地区作为低端生产中心的日子不多了。

The world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer employs 1m people in China. About half its workforce is based at two huge factory complexes in Shenzhen, near Hong Kong.

富士康是全球最大的电子产品代工制造商，在中国员工人数达100万人。约一半员工在深圳两座庞大的厂区工作。

“Shenzhen will probably be our largest site in China for quite some time to come,” Louis Woo, special assistant to group chairman Terry Gou, told the Financial Times. “But the goal is to eventually move all of the actual mass manufacturing to other sites. We will make Shenzhen an engineering campus where we do pilot production only.”

“深圳大概在未来相当长的一段时间里都将是我们在中国规模最大的厂区，”集团董事长郭台铭(Terry Gou)的特别助理胡国辉(Louis Woo)向英国《金融时报》表示。“但我们的目标是，最终将所有大批量生产活动都转移到其它厂区。我们将把深圳作为一个工程园区，只进行试生产。”

Foxconn, a unit of Taiwan-listed Hon Hai, began its move to less developed regions of China last year, after a series of suicides among its Shenzhen workforce. The company responded to the crisis by raising wages – a trend that was reinforced last year after pay- focused strikes at a number of Honda factories in south China.

富士康从属于台湾上市公司鸿海集团(Hon Hai)。在深圳工厂出现了一系列工人自杀事件之后，公司从去年开始向中国的欠发达地区转移。富士康以加薪应对自杀危机——去年华南地区多家本田(Honda)工厂以薪酬为焦点的罢工事件，进一步强化了这种薪酬上涨趋势。

Mr Woo said Foxconn’s Shenzhen headcount would eventually drop below 300,000.

胡国华表示，富士康深圳员工数量最终会减少到30万人以下。

The company’s decision to reinvent its Shenzhen factories as “engineering campuses” is emblematic of the broader relocation of low-end manufacturing processes from coastal manufacturing zones with relatively high costs.

公司将深圳工厂重新打造成“工程园区”的决定，是低端制造环节从成本相对较高的沿海制造业地区大规模转移的一个缩影。

Foxconn makes mobile phones, flatscreen televisions, computers and game consoles for customers including Apple, Sony, Nokia and Dell. Like most contract manufacturers, it already carries out hardware research and design on behalf of its multinational clients.

富士康代工生产手机、平板电视、电脑和游戏机，客户包括苹果(Apple)、索尼(Sony)、诺基亚(Nokia)和戴尔(Dell)等跨国公司。和大多数代工制造商一样，该公司已经开始代客户进行硬件研发与设计。

Because of the large amount of parts and complicated production processes required to make consumer electronic products, the establishment of a new Foxconn assembly plant typically attracts dozens of smaller supplier facilities.

由于消费者电子产品零部件繁多、生产过程复杂，富士康每新建一座组装工厂，通常会吸引数十家规模更小的供应商在周围建设生产设施。

The early presence of Foxconn International Holdings, Hon Hai’s Hong Kong-listed handset manufacturing unit, helped transform Shenzhen into a global manufacturing base for the consumer electronics industry.

鸿海旗下在香港上市的手机制造子公司富士康国际控股(Foxconn International Holdings)曾帮助深圳转型为消费者电子产品行业的全球生产基地。

Foxconn is building huge plants in Henan and Sichuan, two of China’s most populous provinces and home to most of the migrant workers who have moved to work at factories in coastal export centres such as Shenzhen.

富士康正在河南省和四川省兴建大型工厂。这两个省份的人口在中国名列前茅，也是深圳等沿海出口中心工厂农民工的主要来源地。