According to many different surveys and indexes, India and China are becoming global leaders in manufacturing competitiveness in the short term.

The 2010 Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index has rated the overall manufacturing competitiveness of 26 countries currently and in five years. According to this index, the world's top 10 countries in manufacturing competitiveness in 2015 will be China, followed by India, Korea, Brazil, US, Mexico, Japan, Germany and Poland. The rise of 3 countries, particularly China, India and Korea, appears to parallel rapidly growing Asian markets. Manufacturing in India puts in performance every bit as strong as China's.

Manufacturing growth will be supported by strong local consumption growth, and local demand in leading countries will remain strong over the next few years (see "demographics" item below).

Recently, 8 of the 10 global companies with the largest R&D budgets in the world are establishing R&D facilities in China and/or India, and a majority will build manufacturing facilities there. Of course, this is primarily to satisfy surging local demand, while the primary goal (I hope) of US manufacturing resurgence is to bring offshore production back to America.