MIAMI-From gateway American cities to inland areas in Central Europe, industrial and manufacturing is making a comeback. With major developers constructing new buildings and repurposing existing properties, SIOR executives told GlobeSt.com during an exclusive interview inside the Presidential Suite at the organization’s 2012 Spring World Conference that cities across the country and beyond are seeing growth.

“The term is on-shoring, and it is a very real phenomenon,” said SIOR president Geoff Kreusser. “ Wages have been going up 20% a year in China and US wages have actually dropped 20% over the last four years for manufacturing,” explaining that transportation costs alone make it more feasible to manufacture goods in the States. “It does not make sense to make lots of types of products on the other side of the globe and bring them all the way back here,” he added. “The wages in Mexico have increased as well, but Mexico has also seen a lot of expansion. They’ve seen a substantial amount of auto manufacturing that used to be done in Korea and Japan, and they’ve been wanting to make the products closer to the US market.”

One of the other main drivers is intellectual capital, Kreusser said. “We are finding that US corporations are losing their patent protections in places like China, or even in Brazil,” he said. “There are all types of dealings where they don’t have full control like they do if they manufacture it here in the US. We are expecting this trend to continue. Last year, it created over 200,000 jobs, so it’s been one of the brightest spots within the US job sector.”