High-technology manufacturers in the Spokane area are optimistic about the industrys outlook for the coming year, citing rapidly rising revenues and increases in business from customers from outside the country and the region.


Lee Tate, president of Tate Technology Inc., a Spokane-based contract electronic manufacturer, says he feels bullish about the industry, a sentiment he says he hasnt had for a long time.


Tate says he thinks the exodus of high-technology manufacturing to Mexico and China is about to stop and that the tide will turn as the cost of labor rises in China. The high price of fuel is causing Asian companies to begin building heavier products, like cars, in the U.S. to avoid escalating transport costs, he says.


Tate says he expects revenues at Tate Technology to jump about 50 percent next year, after having grown by 20 percent this year. He says he believes his companys competitors here are similarly busy, and he anticipates continued solid growth as consumer products rely more heavily on electronic components.


Pete Chase, president and CEO of Purcell Systems Inc., a Spokane Valley-based maker of outdoor cabinets for telecommunications equipment, says his company is anticipating huge sales growth next year of up to 40 percent. Chase says Purcell Systems is working on large government projects related to homeland security, and that a lot of its growth is in foreign countries that are building up telecommunications infrastructure.


Both Tate and Chase say the high-tech manufacturing industry is becoming more of a turnkey industry, with customers wanting to shift to the manufacturer as much of the final assembly of the products they buy as they can, rather than having to do field assembly themselves to install systems.


Though Chase says Purcell Systems will try to be creative with currency exchange issues and an increasingly sensitive international political climate, the expansion of broadband service in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe present market opportunities the company is pursuing.


Tate says his company is seeing an increase in contract work from customers outside the U.S. that can no longer afford, due to the weakened dollar here, to hire European labor to build products that will be sold in the U.S.


The outlook for the coming year also is strong at Itron Inc., of Spokane Valley, says Deloris Duquette, vice president of investor relations. The company, which mainly sells meter-reading equipment to utilities, has seen a big jump in revenue this year due to the acquisition of Actaris Metering Systems, of Luxembourg, Belgium, Duquette says.


Revenues for Itron North America have slowed somewhat this year as utilities in the U.S. evaluate whether to move to a more advanced form of metering, delaying orders in the interim, Duquette says. She anticipates the pause to be short term.


She says Itrons third-quarter earnings report suggests that the company could see a 30 percent jump in revenue next year since it has owned Actaris for only about three quarters of 2007.