A group of garment manufacturers from Hong Kong are planning to move some of their operations from China to the Thilawa Special Economic Zone, the Japan-backed investment project near Rangoon, The Financial Times reports. Twelve companies have signed a letter of intent to open factories, said Felix Chung, chairman of the Hong Kong Apparel Society. “They go in an urgent way because the costs in China are so expensive now. [China] is not competitive,” he said. The factories are medium-sized firms that would each hire about 2,000 workers, Chung said, adding that investors were negotiating a 50-year lease of land at about US$300,000 per acre.