ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the rapid changes induced by Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the Delta’s economic. The case of the Pearl River Delta offers the opportunity for examining such a relationship in some detail. It is also the region of China that has astounded the world by its rapid structural and urban transformations since 1978, and is thus excellent for illustrating how global forces plus local reform have generated rapid urbanization and change in a formerly rural region of an Less Developed Countries. Available figures for the Delta in 1979–1999 show the same trend as 65 per cent of the inflow of FDI that went to manufacturing while the flow to real estates investments accounted for only 11.3 per cent. Exports of Guangdong Province increased by 154 per cent in 1990–1995 of which the amount involving out-processing had remained consistently high.
