ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on assembly industries that occur in many Third World countries and that are primarily oriented towards their own domestic markets. From the perspective of newly-industrializing countries and Third World countries attempting to industrialize, the major question is to what extent this global industry can be located in their territories. The global shift of many of these sectors in which Third World production and exports have become significant can be partially explained with reference to the product life-cycle model. What then are the possibilities for Third World countries to establish export- oriented motor car industries? The implications for the expansion of export-oriented motor vehicle production in newly-industrializing countries were therefore bleak. Its move into motor vehicles can almost be compared with that of the Japanese 'keiretsu'. It therefore becomes necessary to discuss the motor car industry in an international framework. Certainly Japan and Japanese companies have continued to dominate the international car industry during the 1980s.
