The argument sounds compelling: labour in Vietnam costs half what it does in China, so the goods should be cheaper. In practice, companies that relocated their purchasing on that logic often came back — not because of price, but because of what the comparison left out. This article is for importers moving a container a month or more who are seriously weighing an alternative to China, and it compares the four options on the parameters that actually determine the outcome.
The question is framed wrongly
"Where is labour cheapest" is the wrong question. Labour is 10–25% of the factory price depending on category, and the difference in it is almost always smaller than the difference in everything else: component availability, MOQ, the number of alternative suppliers, and the cost of getting it wrong.
The real question is whether that country has a deep enough supplier base in your specific category for you to compare five factories rather than accept the one you found. Depth, not the wage rate, sets your negotiating position and therefore your price. How labour sits inside a quote: what makes up a factory's price.
Labour cost: the numbers everyone compares
To settle it with figures rather than impressions:
- China — an assembly worker's base wage in Guangdong runs about RMB 2,300–2,800 a month; with social insurance, housing fund and overhead, the all-in cost of a coastal worker is roughly $600–900 a month, or about $6.50 an hour
- Vietnam — around $300–340 a month in manufacturing, roughly $3 an hour
- India — below Vietnamese levels in most categories, but with materially different output per operation
- Turkey — the most expensive labour of the four, offset by logistics and lead time
The gap looks dramatic. Now convert it through labour's share of the price: moving from China to Vietnam at equal productivity yields roughly 5–10% on the factory price, not 50%. And that difference is easily consumed by more expensive component sourcing.
So the rest of this is about what genuinely separates the four.
China
China's core advantage is not price but ecosystem density. Component makers, subcontractors, tooling specialists and final assembly sit inside one cluster, and it took thirty years to build.
What that buys in practice:
- A choice of dozens of factories in any category — meaning a real negotiation rather than an ultimatum
- The lowest MOQs of the four, especially across mixed orders
- Tooling and prototyping fast and locally — see product development in China
- Consolidating many SKUs from different factories into one container — infrastructure like Yiwu's has no equivalent
- Export maturity: documents, certificates, container-ready packing are routine rather than a project
The honest weaknesses: long transit to Europe, exposure to the Chinese holiday calendar, and the fiercest competition among buyers for a good factory's attention. The category map is in China's manufacturing clusters.
Vietnam
A real and mature option for specific categories: textiles, footwear, furniture, electronics assembly.
- Strong where the operation is labour-intensive and the design is simple
- Weak on components: Vietnamese plants overwhelmingly buy raw materials and sub-assemblies from China, so you pay for two legs of logistics
- MOQs run higher than Chinese equivalents, and in most categories the supplier base is a handful of plants, not dozens
- Origin is its own risk. Since July 2025 US Customs has applied a 40% transshipment penalty, and simple assembly or relabelling of Chinese sub-assemblies does not produce "Made in Vietnam". From 24 February 2026 the legal basis for that enforcement moved to Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.
The conclusion: Vietnam works if your category is labour-intensive and you ship to the EU or local markets. If the target market is the US, substantial transformation has to be settled before the first order, not after.
India
The most underrated and most uneven of the four.
- Strong in pharmaceuticals and chemicals, textiles, auto components, and in engineering goods and capital equipment
- More flexible than China on low-volume niche machinery and assemblies, where MOQs can be lower
- But in mass-market categories MOQs run 50–100% higher than Chinese equivalents
- No consolidation infrastructure for many SKUs — mixed purchasing is far harder to administer
- Transit from Mumbai/Nhava Sheva runs roughly 28–35 days, noticeably faster than China
- Government export-support programmes (PLI) genuinely move prices in targeted sectors
India makes sense for a specific product with an engineering content, not as a replacement for broad Chinese purchasing.
Turkey
Turkey wins on geography and lead time, not unit cost: trucks instead of ships, 7–14 days instead of 40–60. For short-cycle and seasonal goods that often matters more than the price per piece.
- Strong in textiles, steel and steel structures, appliances, furniture, food products, building materials
- Small quantities arrive fast — the ability to reorder in three weeks rather than three months
- The EU customs union simplifies chains for European buyers
- More expensive labour — so it wins on heavy, bulky goods where logistics rather than labour decides
And a specific development worth tracking. Ukraine's parliament ratified a free trade agreement with Turkey on 14 July 2026, signed into law on 31 July, entering into force roughly two months after internal procedures complete. Read it correctly, though: the headline gain is on the export side — Turkey zero-rates duties on 10,337 tariff lines, about 95% of Ukrainian exports, plus quotas on a further 1,348. On the import side liberalisation is phased, with three-to-five-year transition periods on categories including vehicles and light industry, and duties retained on second-hand goods. Check your own tariff code rather than assuming a zero rate from day one. The steel comparison is already worked through in steel: China vs Turkey and Europe.
You do not choose a country by the cost of an hour of labour. You choose it by how many factories in it can actually make your product. One supplier in a cheap country always costs more than five in an expensive one.
Choosing for your own case
- Many SKUs, mixed container, small quantities → China, with essentially no alternative
- Labour-intensive simple product, EU market → Vietnam is worth costing
- Engineered product, capital equipment, chemicals → India belongs on the shortlist
- Short season, reorders, heavy and bulky goods → Turkey
- Electronics, solar, battery storage, tooling → China, by a wide margin
- US target market and tariff exposure → origin gets settled first, before the country choice
The honest conclusion
For a mid-size importer moving up to a few containers a month, China remains the base case — not out of ideology, but because supplier depth gives you choice, and choice gives you price. Vietnam, India and Turkey in 2026 are not replacements but complements for specific categories and specific risks.
For most buyers the right strategy is not to relocate purchasing but to know the second and third option in advance. How to do that without doubling your costs: China+1: when to split your sourcing.
Compare it for your product
We work inside the Chinese market, which is exactly why we say plainly when your category is better served elsewhere — that costs less than a failed shipment. For a specific product we cost the landed price, not the factory quote. Seven years, 340+ verified suppliers, 3,500+ deliveries; projects in our case studies.
See supplier search and foreign trade consulting, or write to contact@silkwaysourcing.com or WhatsApp +380 97 883 4765 and we will compare the options for your product in numbers.
