Low-cost country sourcing (LCCS) is procurement strategy in which a company sources materials from countries with lower labour and production costs in order to cut operating expenses. LCCS falls under a broad category of procurement efforts called global sourcing. The process of low cost sourcing consists of two parties. The customer and the supplier countries like US, UK, Canada, Australia, and West European nations are considered as high cost countries (HCC) whereas resource rich and regulated wage labor locations like China, India, Indonesia, Bolivia, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, and East European nations are considered low cost countries (LCC). In low cost country sourcing the material flows from LCC to HCC while the technology flows from HCC to LCC.
The primary principle behind LCCS is to obtain sourcing efficiencies through identifying and exploiting cost arbitrage between geographies.
Not necessarily all "low cost countries" are destinations for LCCS. Only those countries with relatively stable politic and economic environment, modern infrastructure and acceptably compatible legal system are considered to be ideal for sourcing. Examples and most popular regions are China, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, India, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Mexico, Bolivia, Brazil and Czech Republic.