The past several years have been difficult for the U.S. adhesive and sealant industry as a steady movement of manufacturing to Asia has contributed to weak growth in the U.S. manufacturing sector. China has emerged as a leading "factory" of the world, and business has moved to new manufacturing locations there, thus reducing consumption of adhesives and sealants in the U.S. ASC's recently released special report on Business Lost to China offers the first detailed analysis on the impact this shift is having on the U.S. adhesive and sealant industry. On March 9, ASC commissioned the preparation of a special report to identify - at the macro level - the losses caused by the trend of manufacturing in China. The Business Lost to China report utilizes an economic technique called "input-output analysis" to capture the direct - and indirect - losses to the industry as measured by resource tables developed by the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the Department of Commerce. This analysis captures the lost value of adhesives and sealants used directly in manufacturing goods in China, and it also captures the lost value of products used indirectly, such as in the packaging and labeling of those goods. This 13-page report quantifies adhesive and sealant losses in the period 1997-2003 over the 23 U.S. "downstream" industries that utilize adhesives and sealants. It develops the monetary value losses to the industry more accurately than any other report.

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