Plugging Into Production Networks

This work focuses on how less developed economies in Southeast Asia, namely Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV), can establish links with neighbouring countries and participate in production networks. It also takes a look at links between Singapore and the Batam-Bintan-Karimun (BBK) Special Economic Zone in Indonesia. Leading Southeast Asian economies have achieved rapid economic growth by participating in production networks organized by multinational enterprises. It is thus crucial for less developed economies in Southeast Asia to improve their investment climate, attract foreign direct investment, and form competitive industrial clusters. Service link costs must also be reduced substantially to make production fragmentation economically feasible. The authors in this book discuss these issues and provide policy recommendations.

Spatial fragmentation of production is linked with two great waves of unbundling. The first one was a century and a half ago when the spatial location of production of goods was separated from their consumption. We live in the age of a second unbundling where certain operations within the same factory can be fragmented and performed elsewhere. There is trade in certain tasks and components which was made possible by cheaper and better communication and transport. This book considers production networks in East Asia, which is and will continue to be the most dynamic economic region in the decades to come. Miroslav N. Jovanovi , University of Geneva, Switzerland Intermediate input trade is regarded as an important contributory factor in explaining the increase in world trade in recent years. This timely book presents, for the first time, meticulous empirical analyses of the growth of input trade, and includes detailed studies that capture the main features and characteristics of production networks in East Asia. Intermediate input trade has grown markedly in East Asia, and at a much faster rate than in the rest of the world. Since the early 1990s, when technological developments made it possible to separate the production process into many stages, East Asia as a region has developed sophisticated production networks in the manufacture of various products. Different countries have installed production stages according to their levels of technology or factor endowments, and consequently sequential production stages are now located across various countries. In order to produce final goods, East Asian nations have therefore relied on the trade of inputs back and forth. Containing unique and important data, this book will appeal to academics, researchers and policymakers interested in trade, economic integration and Asian studies.

Accelerating processes of economic globalization have fundamentally reshaped the organization of the global economy towards much greater integration and functional interdependence through cross-border economic activity. In this interconnected world system, a new form of economic organization has emerged: Global Production Networks (GPNs). This brings together a wide array of economic actors, most notably capitalist firms, state institutions, labour unions, consumers and non-government organizations, in the transnational production of economic value. National and sub-national economic development in this highly interdependent global economy can no longer be conceived of, and understood within, the distinct territorial boundaries of individual countries and regions. Instead, global production networks are organizational platforms through which actors in these different national or regional economies compete and cooperate for a larger share of the creation, transformation, and capture of value through transnational economic activity. They are also vehicles for transferring the value captured between different places. This book ultimately aims to develop a theory of global production networks that explains economic development in the interconnected global economy. While primarily theoretical in nature, it is well grounded in cutting-edge empirical work in the parallel and highly impactful strands of social science literature on the changing organization of the global economy relating to global commodity chains (GCC), global value chains (GVC), and global production networks (GPN).

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the role of gateway cities in contemporary circuits of global production. Apart from facilitating the interlinking of economic activities in the surrounding regions with the global economy, gateway cities have enormous implications for how certain regions participate in the global economy. Based on a case study of the oil and gas industry in Southeast Asia the book maps gateway cities, explores why these cities have come to occupy a gateway role, and evaluates their implications for regional economic development. To this aim, the book links components from research on the World City Network with Global Production Network research and demonstrates how this intersection creates synergies for studying the role of cities in economic globalization. The main audiences that this book appeals to are researchers and students interested in debates on regional development and the role of cities in the global economy. The book is also attractive to scholars interested in the organization of extractive industries.

Written by Neil M. Coe, this Advanced Introduction provides a comprehensive guide to the vibrant and expanding global production network (GPN) approach, through deftly exploring its antecedents, theoretical underpinnings, and debates and controversies in the field. The author argues overall that, during a time of profound on-going challenges within the global economic system, the need for a GPN framework has never been more pressing.

This book addresses the changing nature of high-tech industries in Asia, particularly in the electronics sector. Its up-to-date findings will be invaluable to those involved in management, production networks and corporate strategy.

This book answers the recently topical questions of how China’s processed trade affects the trade of Southeast Asia. What is Southeast Asia’s role in Factory Asia, the region’s complex of cross-border supply chains? What is Southeast Asia’s involvement in building or joining production networks in the region? And, most important, how can Southeast Asia increase the value added of its products and improve its competitiveness? This book provides rigorous analysis of how trade policy affects value added, highly disaggregated at the firm and product level, of the six Southeast Asian countries – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Viet Nam – and combines this with thorough examinations of their trade, industrial and labour policies.

Explains how production networks and industrial clusters have played crucial roles in the industrial development of Indonesia and Malaysia (electronics industry), Singapore (biomedical science industry), and Thailand (automotive industry).