Student number: 311050

In the past, many companies moved their production to China, because of the lower labour costs. However, one sees that recently some companies are moving part of their production back to Europe after experiencing several issues, such as, quality issues, increasing wages in China, and an inflexible and unreliable supply chain. This emerging trend of producing in countries near the final market is called “near-sourcing”. The aim of this thesis is to find out what the impact of near-sourcing is on the port of Rotterdam. Based on scientific papers, articles and newspapers, one finds that near-sourcing is indeed an emerging trend. Furthermore, it has many advantages and opportunities that companies overlooked. Besides, the hidden cost of global sourcing are overlooked by many companies as well. According to Verweij (2009) the cost savings for a global sourcing company, in the end, is in average only 5 % or less. I focused on the clothing industry as I believe that near-sourcing is relevant for this industry. Clothing companies should be able to react quickly on the market demand when a certain T-shirt with a certain print turns out to be a hot item. The findings are that some companies are already near-sourcing and see near-sourcing as a relevant strategy of the supply chain. Also, companies are aware of the increased production costs in China and start seeking for alternatives. Near-sourcing may be a solution for this. Next to China, more and more clothing companies are producing in Turkey and this share will increase in the future. Thus, part of the production will move from China to Turkey. This causes the port of Rotterdam to lose a certain part of the throughput as products from Turkey are always transported by trucks to the Netherlands