By the end of the decade, the consulting firm said, manufacturers will shift production from countries in Europe and from Japan to take advantage of substantially lower costs in the United States.
BCG expects that by about 2015 the United States will have an export cost advantage of 5 percent to 25 percent over Germany, Italy, France, the UK and Japan in several industries. This advantage comes mostly from in-country costs of labor, natural gas, and electricity. These factors could enable the United States to take over 2 percent to 4 percent of the exports from the four European countries named above and take 3 percent to 7 percent from Japan by 2020.
BCG estimates this would result in additional U.S. exports per year of as much as $90bn. Add in increased United States exports to the rest of the world and BCG estimates the increase in exports may be as much as $130bn.
The consulting firm expects the biggest gains in U.S. exports will be will be in electrical equipment and appliances, as well as machinery, transportation equipment, and chemicals.
