Reshoring to Utah: Challenges and Opportunities By David Beckerman, Lead Analyst, UAMMI
Reshoring has been a hot topic of late. The global COVID-19 pandemic exposed the weaknesses in global supply chains, but even before the pandemic a rise in tariffs in America on Chinese goods and increased tensions between the two countries had caused firms to reexamine the benefits and challenges of manufacturing and sourcing in China. Companies looking to reshore would like assistance with both the evaluation of opportunities and the reshoring process, but often find few such resources. To that end, the Utah Defense Manufacturing Community (UDMC), through the Utah Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Initiative (UAMMI), set out to identify and assess reshoring efforts. The goal of the research is to support Utah’s policymakers in developing a statewide reshoring program. UDMC divided its work into four projects: 1. A benchmarking analysis that compared Utah’s reshoring efforts with those of other states and local communities around the country; 2. The second project was an economic benefit analysis that sought to compare the costs of manufacturing or sourcing in Utah with the costs of doing so overseas, particularly in China;
21
3. Identification of Utah companies looking to reshore; 4. Attracting non-Utah companies that seek to reshore to the U.S. UDMC has completed the first two of these projects and gained interesting insight on Utah’s competitiveness as a reshoring destination. The benchmarking analysis showed that Utah, although in line with its peers, could do more to proactively encourage reshoring to the state. Many people are surprised to discover that neither the Federal government nor any of the states provide financial assistance to companies that are looking to reshore. Federal support is limited to consulting and analytical support tools through the U.S. Department of Commerce. Few local entities – states, manufacturing communities states or other local organizations – have developed specific reshoring incentives. They instead treat reshoring like any inquiry for new site location or expansion. Thus, the available incentives (support for job training, new employment credits, site selection, etc.) are not specifically targeted to reshoring companies. A Google search for “Reshoring Utah” will direct you to a site run by the Reshoring Institute (an excellent organization), but not to any state or local programs.
MFGUTAH
