ABSTRACT
This chapter examines another strategy utlised by late industrializing countries-export oriented industrialization (EOI). This is discussed through an assessment of the industrialization experiences of the “four tigers”—Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan-and the special economic zones in China. Industrialization in these four countries1 has been very successful in the last thirty years. From 1960 to the mid-1980s, they each experienced annual average growth rates of around 8 per cent, compared with 7 per cent for Japan, and 3 per cent for the United States and the European Community (Wade 1990:34). In terms of manufactured exports, together they accounted for around 8 per cent of the world markets compared to 0.4 per cent for Mexico, and over half of all developing country manufactured exports in the mid-1980s (ibid.). In the 1970s, the export growth rate in South Korea averaged 37 per cent a year; while on a per capita basis, in the late 1980s Hong Kong’s and Singapore’s manufacturing exports were around 50 per cent greater than those of West Germany (Edwards 1992:109; Drakakis-Smith 1992:141-2). As growth rates fell for many countries in the recessionary 1980s, the tigers maintained relatively high growth of around 7 per cent a year (Wade 1990:34). Moreover, as well as experiencing rapid rates of industrial growth, the tigers also scored comparatively well in terms of social development.
