QuoteAs has been said time and time (and time) again, the biggest single contributor to a model is the unit labour cost of assembly

As I understand it the largest cost is tooling, not assembly, and labour cost is not the biggest issue - if it was, then models would be made in cheaper countries than China, and unit production cost would not be so dependent on volume as noted by Mike.

What China has that is hard to replicate elsewhere is the whole ecosystem of model design, tooling, procurement, component supply and assembly expertise at reasonable cost.

Labour costs along with production costs in China have gone up considerably in recent years, one of the reasons Bachmann USA has moved a lot of production back to the US I have been led to believe