ABSTRACT
Over the past three or four decades, East Asia has been one of the most vibrant regions of the world economy. Not only have the countries participating in this dynamism each achieved rapid industrial development in their own right, the region as a whole has also become increasingly integrated, giving rise to the notion of a ‘Factory Asia’. This notion is a reflection of both the fact that Asia has become a key supplier of manufactured goods to consumers around the world and that, in a range of sectors, the production of these manufactured goods is organized in a fashion that spans large parts of the region and closely links economies with each other.
