Factory space is Europe’s next hot commodity


Industrial space in Europe is at a premium as global tensions accelerate a ‘near-shoring’ trend for manufacturers.

Companies bought or leased 29% more space in Europe last year compared to the year prior. And it seems there’s a mix of factors at play:

  • 🚀 Online shopping has driven demand for logistics space
  • 🦾 Automation is cutting some operating costs in Europe, and
  • 💰 Governments are offering incentives to companies.

But Europe’s near-shoring journey is still rougher than a Ryanair red-eye:

  • 📈 Higher energy prices have left some activities non-viable
  • 👷 Firms are struggling to find the right manufacturing skills, and
  • ⚖️ The gains are uneven (central and eastern Europe benefit most)

Plus, a key Euro-area manufacturing index just hit its lowest point since 2020, suggesting there’s a lag between renting space and actually using it (not to mention a broader economic slowdown).

Intrigue’s take: The ‘shoring’ buzzwords have been crushing it lately: near-shoring, friend-shoring, right-shoring, re-shoring, on-shoring.

But they all basically point to the same thing: a spooked world securing supply chains and reducing its reliance on China. And yet, China is now exporting a trillion dollars more to the world in goods each year than before COVID.

So the world may need even more ‘shoring’. Or more time. Or both.

Also worth noting:

  • global manufacturing index has now signalled a drop in worldwide goods exports for eight straight months.
  • France pitched a ‘Made in Europe’ industrial strategy to the European Commission earlier this year.
Latest Author Articles
Three golden tales as our world wobbles

Gold prices smashed a new record yet again on Monday, breaking past $3,100/oz. Why? The proximate answer is we’re now a day away from Trump unveiling his next tariffs on all countries (not just those with US trade imbalances) — and the related unpredictability is making it trickier for executives to plan, investors to trade, […]

1 April, 2025
Is Sudan’s civil war at a turning point? 

Usually when we land at an airport, we ditch that flight mode, check what memes we missed, then shake our head disapprovingly when other passengers defy the captain and stand up before the little ‘bing’ seatbelt noise. But not Sudan’s General al-Burhan. When he landed at Khartoum’s international airport on Wednesday, he stepped out of […]

28 March, 2025
Something’s going down in Indonesia…

Indonesia’s benchmark stock index plunged 7.1% within hours on Tuesday, triggering a temporary trading halt for the first time since early Covid. And that’s captured our attention because first, Indonesia is Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, and second, we were just writing about the conga-line of tech CEOs flying there for a slice of the country’s enormous potential. So, what’s […]

21 March, 2025
Four countries in the JFK files

While legions of experts, amateurs, and AI chatbots still duly comb through the ~60,000 pages of newly published JFK files, there’s nothing yet to upend the conclusions of the 1964 Warren Commission report which found that Lee Harvey Oswald, an oddball former marine with communist convictions, assassinated the president and acted alone. Still, this new trove […]

20 March, 2025