Skigutane, the owner of the Åsnes ski factory in Norway, can no longer afford to keep up national production and will outsource all manufacturing to China in 2009. It will close the famous site in Straumses, which was opened in 1922 by the Asnes brothers. The factory produced 8,000 skis annually and employed 15 people, but was essentially kept up for tradition’s sake. Its hand-made skis, carved in wood with steel edging, were sold as high-end products. Skigutane has offered to take all 15 employees on at its head office in Voss or at Extrem Snowboards, the snowboarding company it owns in Åre, Sweden. It acquired the factory two years ago, but has been dragging losses of up to 1.3 million Norwegian kronor (€142,000-$185,000), which were only made worse by bad sales results in 2007.