ABSTRACT
This opening chapter introduces the issues discussed in this book. The chapter first introduces how and in what context industrial promotion is explicitly targeted in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). By reviewing the scorecard of poverty reduction in the world during the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) era, it generally associates the success in poverty reduction with industrial promotion using the Poverty-Growth-Inequality (PGI) triangle. In this way, the analyses presented in this book will try to capture industrial policies not only in the context of promoting economic “growth” but also of designing “inclusive” development. Then, the chapter presents industrial policies in retrospect and prospect. It describes how industrial policy was once regarded as a “dirty word,” but has now returned to centerstage in generating sustainable and inclusive industrial promotion. Old and new arguments for industrial policies are reviewed against the arguments against them. The chapter categorizes kinds and instruments of industrial policies in both narrow/traditional and broad/modern senses. Some of the key challenges that we face in promoting industries and productive sectors in developing countries in today’s globalized world economy and in the context of the changing shape of global and local manufacturing industries are introduced. The final section lists the issues and questions to be addressed in this book, and presents the structure of the book.
