The Impracticalities of Local Manufacturing ⇥

The company behind Raspberry Pi, the $25 Linux box, is based in the UK and wanted to manufacture it locally. However, they ran into a number of surprising and debilitating issues.

If a British company imports components, it has to pay tax on those (and most components are not made in the UK). If, however, a completed device is made abroad and imported into the UK – with all of those components soldered onto it – it does not attract any import duty at all.

Surprising and hostile to companies.