Sunfish, Romulus, I think I can nail the attractiveness of overseas maintenance with a couple of examples. It is not wages. It is the ability of the facility to turn a blind eye and declare that an aircraft is fit to fly in the cheapest possible manner. This is the Singapore way.
We have a report of a QF plane that was up there. The Qantas LAME came in at 0700. The Singapore LAME who had worked the 8 hour night shift handed in cards he had certified for covering inspections with an estimated time totalling 58 hours. Of course he found nothing wrong.
And then there is the broken wires they just used a household stapler to repair in dozens of locations across 3 different aircraft.
When managers only look at the price it is really hard to compete with dodgy operators that cheat the system. Of course the latent defects that are missed come back and bite the airline and sometimes their passengers at the most inconvenient of times.