So this is from memory and I just had two shots of tequila...so...

Importation of the Hi Power has been dependent on military parts sales. FN has no desire to manufacture the Hi Power anymore, as the Hi Power is not a very profitable pistol for FN (especially in comparison to modern pistols). The Hi Power is no longer militarily relevant for new sales, and the only market is spare parts for military customers who refuse to let go of the Hi Power. . So it doesn't make much sense to change manufacturing processes from the old processes to the new ways when orders of parts are rapidly decreasing. So FN stopped production and put the equipment in storage in 2000(IIRC), to make room for new equipment for new products.

Meanwhile, Browning imported Hi Powers up until around 2001 when they quietly dropped the Hi Power since production had stopped.
By late 2002 FN had secured large orders from military customers for Hi Power parts. Management looked at past civilian sales, and the size of the military parts orders, so it made sense to pull the old equipment out, and resume production. Just one problem...Browning wasn't buying!

So for the years 2003-2004 FN brought in Hi Power's under the FN logo. These were not the full line of HP's that Browning imported. Most were baked enamel finish, with some blued guns. There were no pistols with adjustable sights, tangent sights, etc; just the military models. But this included many that were brought in with the SFS trigger/safety system.

Finally, around 2005 Browning started buying again, and all returned to normal. Actually, very few people really noticed anything had happened. Either that, or the only one's who remember are us Hi Power geeks.

Finally, on up to the announcement in Feb 2018 (IIRC). Considering who FN really is, it would take a HUGE demand from the military sales side for them to ever tool back up to produce the Hi Power.

Now, there does lie an opportunity for some company who wants to emulate what DS Arms did. They bought up the equipment for manufacturing the FN FAL and are now THE producer of FAL's worldwide. Equipment to make Hi Power's is laying in an FN warehouse in Belgium, as well as a DGFN warehouse in Argentina. I'm not holding out much hope, using that equipment only makes economic sense when you're producing large quantities of pistols, and I just don't think there's that much demand for Hi Power's anymore.

In the mean time, I'm hearing very good things about the Tsisa's Hi Power's coming out of Turkey.