SINGAPORE: Walking the factory floor of Western Digital Techno-logies Inc in Kuala Lumpur, John Coyne, a company senior vice-president, is comforted by the thunder of well-oiled machinery. But the hum comes at a deafening price for nearby Singapore. The US hard disk drive maker shut its factory in the republic four years ago and mo-ved its production lines to lower-cost Malaysia, resulting in the loss of 4,000 jobs.
Other companies have followed suit, with the world’s largest disk driver maker Seagate Technology Inc and rival Maxtor Corp gradually shifting their lower-end factories out of Sin-gapore to cheaper manufacturing centres in Malaysia, Thailand and China -- the hottest investment destination these days.
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