The Change in the Industrial Structure in Asian Countries
Kenich Furuya
Chief director of Aging Society and culture Association
Introduction
East Asian countries, including those in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), which have been blessed with favorable agricultural production conditions within the monsoon zone, have changed significantly in the last thirty years, but after 1990 they began to worry about the reduced percentage of self-supplied food. On the other hand, it is said that on an economic scale, soon they will account for one third of the world's economy, which would be on a par with America and the European Union. These economies have continued to grow miraculously in a sluggish world economy from the eighties through to the nineties, and although it shows a slowing of pace, compared to the seventies and early eighties, it is notable that growth of around five percent has been maintained throughout this whole region even in the early nineties.
This incredible growth was a simultaneous process of industrial structural change and the swift transferal from agricultural to manufacturing industries, the like of which has never before been experienced in the history of mankind. Most countries in this area, as developing nations, required financial support from the developed nations, however the Asian 'Newly Industrializing Economies' (NIE's) ended their reliance on financial support in the seventies, and Thailand and Malaysia of the ASEAN countries followed in the late eighties/nineties. The economic scale expanded throughout this whole area with the Indo-chinese countries including Laos, LLDC, joining ASEAN, but on the other hand the industrial structural change based on the movement from an agricultural to a manufacturing base continues towards the next century against a background of economic growth, although the variety of different levels of economic development and complications in its speed are seen. In this chapter, we would like to consider the realities, features and causes of change in the industrial structure. Although we can't make a comprehensive analysis due to incomplete data, as is typical of developing countries, I will try to cover this with additional information.
