Developing country factory owners worry about governments’ labour policies

South African “Chinese” factory owners continue to fight minimum wage laws, as Kenyans blame new government-imposed minimum wagesfor garment industry collapse. Vietnamese businesses protest against “heavy burden” of new labour law. Philippine garment exporters welcometwo-tier minimum

Government interventions to push up wages and improve working conditions are often unconditionally approved by Westerners. But those interventions may not be properly planned: Vietnam's seems to have been dreamt up by Communist bureaucrats (there's no other kind in Vietnam's civil service) with no proper consultation with real businesses. And not all the interventions might be in the long term interwst of a country's workers - or of its underemployed.

The May 2013 edition of The Source, like its predecessors, doesn't just relate the last month's sourcing news. It places sourcing events into their wider context.