ABSTRACT
This chapter examines another strategy utlised by late industrializing countries — Export Oriented Industrialization (EOI). It discusses 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. Neo-liberal advocates of EOI argue that such a strategy is far more productive because it allows nation-states to exercise their comparative advantage in the world economy — that is, it allows countries to concentrate on those goods that they produce most cheaply, and exchange these for the products of other countries’ comparative advantage. Neo-liberals argue that as well as promoting greater economic efficiency, EOI also leads to more equitable income distribution. Furthermore, EOI represents a model that others can follow, because its success was “almost entirely due to good policies and the ability of the people — scarcely at all to favourable circumstances or a good start”.
