As a result of President Trump’s “List 4” tariffs which took effect on September 1, 2019, Casio is shifting the production of its wristwatches (destined for the U.S. and including G-Shock) from China to Thailand. The tariffs impose a 15% tariff on 91.6% of apparel imports from China. According to a report from Japan, this change of production facilities was implemented on September 3, 2019. Casio already has factories in Thailand where a lot of G-Shock watches are produced for worldwide markets, so the transition is likely to go smoothly and without any disturbance to consumers.
The made-in-China G-Shock watches are usually the more affordable models, though some pricier models like the G-STEEL GST-B100, G-STEEL GST-B200 and GM-5600 were also being manufactured there, according to www.e-casio.co.jp.
In addition to China and Thailand, Casio also has factories in Japan where it makes some of the higher-end G-Shock models and collaboration watches.
Good and honest decision….people in China are hard working people and they earn a little money……I hope China will change their economy and respect their own citizens!!! The Chinese government is only busy with being the greatest in the market and earning money in a wrong and not being fair way…..be honest China!!!
Get infomed and be honest. China labor wages have been increased significantly over the past decade. As a metter of fact, their wages are higher than in The Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
IMHO Casio shouldn’t have manufactured any G-shock models in China in the first place. The actual QC speaks for itself…
Here’s my unfortunate experience. I’ve been wearing a MIT G-9000 model for years until the piezo alarm broke and the entire watch had to be replaced. Turned out the replacement G-9000 is MIC and while it worked initially, more problems unraveled later. For instance, the watch would suddenly reset itself to factory settings without any notification, prompting me to do the time readjustment over again. And this symptom is getting more and more frequent as we speak. Then another time the module suddenly “changed” in such a way that all the button configuration had switched to that of the G-9100. Eventually I had to take it to the Casio dealer to have the watch completely reset. Fortunately this weird symptom only happened once.
But that’s not all. The G-9000’s module concerned also gets aged out faster than the previously one, in that the display digits have fainted quicker than imagined. To this day I’m still wearing the MIC G-9000 but knowing it won’t last any longer I bought a new MIT G-9000 on reserve, and am looking forward to using it once I decide it’s time to junk the MIC G-9000 for good.
Sorry to hear about your problems. I don’t think any electronics manufacturer has a 0% failure rate, and I’m not sure you can dismiss the overall quality control in China based on one bad experience. Casio has had problems with certain modules before, but I’ve never heard of those problems with the G-9000. Could those problems be related to a diminishing battery? I have a GW-9000 that is still working fine after 10 years. The digits starting becoming faint and the watch wasn’t responding to the buttons, but after a battery change it was fine.
@G-Central
I can confirm it’s NOT a simple battery problem. Have already changed battery but the symptoms still persist. Also sometimes during mode change the screen would go blank for a second and after that the watch would reset itself to factory default. Sometimes just pushing any button for a certain operation would also result in the said reset. The other day I had to use the stopwatch and right after pressing start the module reset itself again!! Not sure if there’s something iffy inside the module which short-circuits randomly and resets the module. All these never ever happened to my previous MIT G-9000 (and hopefully, not on my upcoming MIT G-9000 replacement).
Well, the G-900 is known for being somewhat difficult to put back together after a battery change, but the resulting problems from slight misalignment are usually just the buttons not working. Yeah, sounds like a problem with the module. Good luck with the next one.