One quarter to half of the manufacturing companies in different Western European countries performed offshoring of production activities in 2002 or 2003 - with Germany not ranking in the top positions. In Eastern Europe production offshoring is rather uncommon. Attempts to reduce the costs of production factors are still the dominating motive, but factors such as market opening, vicinity to key customers or securing the ability to supply locally are important, too. However, production offshoring is not necessarily an irreversible one-way process. Varying from country to country, every second to sixth offshoring company is countered by a backsourcing company.
