glove

A large percentage of gloves used in this world are manufactured in countries such as China, Malaysia and Indonesia. As a word of warning, Indonesia is considered to be one of Southeast Asia's weakest links in the war on terror and the U.S. has already called it a safe haven for terrorists. Chinese labor is cheap and plentiful and the rubber trees are rated nearly as good as the Malaysian crop. In some cases, rubber is tapped in Malaysia and then sent to China for glove production to take advantage of cheap Chinese labor. Some China factories have been retooled from rubber manufacturing to palm oil, and rubber trees are not being replanted, mostly because the higher labor costs and efforts to improve the quality of gloves has edged prices higher and slowed purchases coming from an ultracompetitive U.S. market. One observer who has spent time in the region blamed part of the problem on a medical supply industry that has been slow to adapt to modern ways.