Competitiveness, Manufacturing and Infrastructure: The Asian Paradigm

Emerging Asian economies are at the cusp of marking a structural shift from being factor driven to the one driven by efficiency. This is translated into their actions towards strategising their growth drivers so as to achieve factor-based efficiency through industrial infrastructure creation, namely MSME clusters, economic corridors, economic cities, infrastructure enablers and logistics hub. While the traditional tenets of competitiveness are based on building competitive advantage in manufacturing of certain products and their integration in the global value chain, this article builds upon the concept of competitiveness as a function of its constituent pillars as defined by the World Economic Forum. The objective of this article is to present a holistic view on the constituent pillars of competitiveness that have contributed maximum to the increased per capita GDP and trade for East Asian economies. Through an examination of select countries as case studies and studying their development through time, this article presents policymakers with strategies that can be used for designing manufacturing development strategy for emerging economies.