This book focuses on East Asia, which has been attracting FDI and a centre of industrial agglomeration, and because of this, the production structure in the world has been dynamically transforming. This book analyzes this world trend and provides a framework for strategy that is required not only for Japanese local governments to implement industrial cluster policy, but also for firms to survive the global competition.

Industrial clusters in Silicon Valley, Hsinchu Park, and northern Italy, and in the vicinity of Cambridge, U.K., have captured the imagination of policymakers, researchers, city planners and business people. Where clusters take root, they can generate valuable spillovers, promote innovation, and create the critical industrial mass for sustained growth. For cities such as Kitakyushu, Japan, that are faced with the erosion of their traditional industrial base and are threatened by economic decline, creating a cluster that would reverse the downward trends is enormously attractive. Growing Industrial Clusters in Asia offers practical guidance on the nature of clusters and the likely efficacy of measures that could help build a cluster. It draws on the experience of both established dynamic clusters and newly emerging ones that show considerable promise. The insights that result from its anlaysis will be of particular interest to policy makers, urban planners, business people, and researchers.

This lucid and informative book analyzes the problems of clusters in transition through studies of agglomerations at different stages of development in various East Asian countries. The contributors reconsider industrial cluster policy within a more dynamic and long-term framework, and explore how regional transformations can bring new insights to the theory of agglomeration and innovation. By identifying the factors and policies to promote upgrading, the authors establish the theoretical and policy basis for transforming industrial clusters from production-oriented to innovation-oriented agglomerations. They also study the important structural changes in the region, such as FTAs and the role of the WTO, and the consequent effects on clusters. Researchers and students of Asian economics, industrial clusters and innovation will find this incisive book invaluable. It will also prove to be a compelling read for policymakers in developing countries or international development organizations.

Provides a comprehensive overview of what Asian industrial clusters might teach us. Based on empirical surveys and interviews conducted in China, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Japan, this title collects studies that were first debated at an international workshop in Lyon.

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).

This book integrates diversified methodologies of area studies, regional economic development, regional science, and related fields to draw up a strategy for forming the “regional food industrial cluster” in Northeast Asia. This is done by assigning “innovation” to a core concept, with the basic problem of food security as the horizontal axis and the areas of Northeast Asia as the vertical axis. Specifically, the principle of “collaborative advantage” as a key factor is extracted from case studies on food industrial clustering in each area. As a final objective, a practical policy recommendation is presented while the theorization of the industrial cluster is developed. Therefore it is also a challenge to the old and new issue of food security which has been argued until now.

With emphasis on economic growth since the mid twentieth century in which industrial and scientific revolutions played important roles in society, the priority of university and education has been shift to the contributor to knowledge, economy and innovation, as many argue that knowledge and skill becomes a key factor of production. As industrial clusters were emerged as a mean to improve competitiveness of industry in global and knowledge economy, this book is to investigate the roles of industrial clustering and roles of universities in development of industrial clusters and competitiveness. The seven chapters in this book feature frameworks and concepts, along with case studies in different regions and countries, to understand the dynamics and development of cooperation between industrial clusters and higher education to enhance national and regional competitiveness.

This book presents a deeper understanding of the on-going de facto economic integration in East Asia, looking at the extent of economic integration, what sort of integration has been accomplished, and comparing the level of integration reached and the path followed to that of the European Union.

This book analyzes three points: employment conditions for migrant workers, the impact of industrialization as part of industrial clusters upon surrounding and outlying villages, and the labour market in industrial clusters. This book examines the cases of two newly developed industrial clusters: Ludhiana in Punjab and Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu.

Despite its utmost importance, the issue of industrial development has been largely neglected in the literature for the last few decades. The authors have conducted comparative case studies between Chinese and Japanese industries.