Coligny wrote:steel !?
Textile...
automotive (ask the British)...
anything labor intensive...
Dood... I can draw you a map of industrial cemeteries...
The textile industry in Japan is dying rapidly as well. I used to work for a company related to that sector and saw it happening first hand. Larger companies are moving manufacturing to China [more on this below] and smaller companies are shutting down or going broke.
British cars though... I think that industry died out mostly because much of what it produced was junk. Of course it would have been better if they had started producing better vehicles more able to compete with global brands but things don't always work out.
Regarding China (as mentioned above), textile companies are starting to move production from China to places like Bangladesh. Chinese labour is apparently getting too expensive. However, countries like Bangladesh actually have some semblance of environmental regulation so things like dyeing clothing can't be done there with just dumping the polluted byproducts into a nearby river. So the really shitty work like dyeing and other treatments still gets done in China (no environmental regulations -- or just corrupt officials) and the resulting material is sent to Bangladesh to be made into clothes or other products. This is why I won't buy Chinese rice or other foods that I know are sourced from China. Concepts such as "food safety" and "environmental regulations" either completely don't exist or are not enforced at all.
