Made In China / Made By China

Years ago, it was important to see where an item was made when you were trying to find that perfect souvenir to bring home from the foreign land.  It is no longer relevant now because almost any souvenir you pick up has the words "Made in China" written at the back.  So what do you do?

Good to know the reputation of Chinese products in Japan has improved substantially.  The flip side of the coin though, it is not helping with China's balance of trade at all. 

Say for example a computer labelled "Made in China", is likely to contain a large portion of imported contents including an Intel chip, a Microsoft Windows operating system and a liquid crystal display made in South Korea.  Which means, only a very small percentage of the value-added product labelled "Made in China" is actually "Made by China".


My limited Economics degree taught me the latter corresponds to the concept of China's GNP, and excludes import charges on intermediate goods and investment income paid to overseas countries.  

The former, when increasing exports, requires importing more intermediate components at the same time, which do not form part of China's GDP. 


My take is, you will be far better off looking at the images made by a camera or lens and not wasting time checking what the "made in" sticker says.