CEBU PHILIPPINES:The leaves of the banana tree hang heavy in the 30-degree tropical heat in the jungle vegetation just outside the Philippine city of Cebu, around the corner from the 60-degree heat of a Finnish sauna.
The has to be one of the most extreme examples of outsourcing - the manufacturing of saunas, by Sawo Finland, by Filipino workers, using Finnish raw materials.
Founder VM Kallioniemi, 49, from Honkajoki, 350 kilometres northwest of Helsinki, examined various sites among the 65 special economic zones in the Philippines, as well as Manila, between 1997 and 1999 when the company was established in Asia.
Testing and product development is carried out in the factory, which is in itself a model factory from Finland. Everything is imported - even the light concrete walls and roof in the building itself. For the sauna rooms, all the wood and stone comes from Finland, except the bamboo.
While Vietnam and China were more competitive on salaries, the quality of the workers was better in the Philippines and this allowed Sawo to do testing and product development at the factory. The company had various tax incentives and Kallioniemi insists he has no experience of the country's corruption problems.
