Portugal: Why did Leica decide to set up a factory there?

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eleskin

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I am fascinated by this question (aside from the fact that My Wife was born in Northern Portugal, and most of her family is still there, the people there being very friendly, the food being fantastic, the green hills, fresh air, etc,,) as to why Leica makes components for cameras etc,, in Portugal. It would be fascinating to hear some inside information, as well as from some who have toured the plant there near the city of Porto.
 
Portugal has the lowest labor costs in Western Europe and they are on the Euro so no exchange rate.
 
There's not much 'precision engineering' done there (at least, not by Leica standards). More the 'heavy engineering' (again, by Leica standards).

Tashi delek,

R.
 
I just saw a video from L Camera TV that had a tour of Leica Germany where they were showing the assembly of M7 camera. They said "this is what we get from Portugal".It looked like 75% of the camera with only the top missing. It seems much of that camera is made there, and the final assembly takes place in Germany, where all the fine tuning so to speak takes place. I wonder how much of the M8 is made in Portugal.

Anyone find photos of the plant in Portugal? I link to Google Earth would be cool to so we can see the plant from above to get an idea what it looks like.
 
L39UK said:
I read somewhere that Leitz decision to transfer some camera assembly, particularly the then new Leica SL2, to the new factory in Portugal was partly to reduce labour costs but more importantly it was subsidised by the EU because it was rated as an EU development area.
All Leica SL's were produced and assembled in Germany and all SL2's other than the first prototypes were assembled in Portugal.
Click to expand...

all true + preferential tax schemes + their headquarters had its seat at that time in Switzerland
 
eleskin said:
I just saw a video from L Camera TV that had a tour of Leica Germany where they were showing the assembly of M7 camera. They said "this is what we get from Portugal".It looked like 75% of the camera with only the top missing. It seems much of that camera is made there, and the final assembly takes place in Germany, where all the fine tuning so to speak takes place. I wonder how much of the M8 is made in Portugal.

Anyone find photos of the plant in Portugal? I link to Google Earth would be cool to so we can see the plant from above to get an idea what it looks like.
Click to expand...
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=41.393985,-8.5147008&z=17&hl=pt&t=h
 
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