Re: Tram manufacture

[matthew@mail.usyd.edu.au (Matthew Geier)]

In article <39e4c255@news.alphalink.com.au>,
whitehat <whitehat@alphalink.com.au> wrote:
>It appears that both of Melbourne's tram companies will be buying their new
>trams from Europe (Germany and France I think).
>
>The claim is that (among other things) local manufacture could  not compete
>on price. What is going on? Local manufacturers claims to be world class.
>They are not competing with third world cheap labour but with high wage
>European labour. The trams have to be shipped half way around the world at
>enormous cost and even with that huge advantage local manufacture cannot
>compete.
>
>Am I missing something here?
>

 ECC politics. There is massive over capacity in railway/tram manufacturing
ability in Europe.
 Lots of little regional companies supported by local contracts have all
been bought up by a couple of big companies (Diamler-Benz, Siemens, etc)
after the EU mandated open tending across country boarders.
 But it most public transport is government funded. The polticians, looking
for the vote always find ways of making sure a local workshop gets the job.
They 'open tender' and the 3 big compays put in bids, ALL using workshops
in that country. They know the polical situation... Open tending above the
table, under the table.....

 As a result nearly every big country has a workshop with each of the big
suppliers. The market isn't really big enough to support this many workshops,
but the poltical nature of the business means they can't afford to close them.
Most of these manufactures are bleading money badly out of their rollingstock
divisions, desperatly hoping some city will place a big enough order to keep
them afloat.

 EU contracts are worth more than any Australian one would ever be. The
government didn't mandate local content. So the partners in the tramway 
companys send the work to Europe in attempt to at least offset some of the
cost of all those extra factories. It isn't going to affect their Australian
coutracts when the local factories close. Signed and sealed, no requirement
to protect Australian jobs implied or otherwise. Obviously our politicans
don't care enough (or are not clever enough) to manipulate the market like
the Europeans seem to do.