ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses issues that ought to be of central concern to a number of the so-called high performing economies in East Asia, a group of countries that participate in East Asian growth dynamism and have already achieved middle income levels. The topic is related to the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector in economies that receive a large amount of FDI and have formed a sufficiently large base for producing and exporting manufactured products. The challenges analyzed here are quite different from and pertinent to a much higher development level than those faced by typical low income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and other regions, where enticing investors to form an initial industrial base is the main policy objective. East Asia’s middle income economies, with an aspiration to join the ranks of highly advanced countries, must overcome the barriers that keep them in the middle stage of development.
