Introduction

The Less Developed Countries (LDCs) of America lost ground, while Africa and the LDCs of West Asia and Europe have been marginal in the global map of production. As far as LDCs are concerned, almost all the change in performance was due to the rapid increases in a relatively small number of countries in Southeast Asia. Among the countries of the region, it was China that displayed the most spectacular performance, recently overtaking Germany as the third most significant manufacturing producer in the world. Regional innovation systems can consist of high-tech, science-based industries as well as of clusters of more traditional, medium or even low-tech industries. Within the DCs, there have also been considerable changes. North America emerged as the dominant region, with more than 30 per cent of the world manufacturing value-added in 2001, outperforming Western Europe. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.