IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/cjrecs/v8y2015i3p521-536..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Growing against the odds: government agency and strategic recoupling as sources of competitiveness in the garment industry of the Pearl River Delta

Author

Listed:
  • Florian Butollo

Abstract

Despite pressures of rising production costs, China’s garment industry has recently displayed continuous growth. We argue that this persisting strength is the result of ‘strategic recoupling’ through which former low-end exporters forge new links to the domestic market or supply higher value-added products to export markets while relocating parts of their operations to regions with lower production costs. Drawing on empirical data from clusters in the Pearl River Delta (PRD), it is analysed how local governments can act as agents in such processes. This is seen as one source of the ongoing attractiveness of the PRD as a hub for the garment industry.

Suggested Citation

  • Florian Butollo, 2015. "Growing against the odds: government agency and strategic recoupling as sources of competitiveness in the garment industry of the Pearl River Delta," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 8(3), pages 521-536.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:cjrecs:v:8:y:2015:i:3:p:521-536.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cjres/rsv020
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher A. MCNALLY, 2013. "Refurbishing State Capitalism: A Policy Analysis of Efforts to Rebalance China’s Political Economy," Journal of Current Chinese Affairs - China aktuell, Institute of Asian Studies, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 42(4), pages 45-71.
    2. Olivier Cattaneo & Gary Gereffi & Cornelia Staritz, 2010. "Global Value Chains in a Postcrisis World : A Development Perspective," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2509, December.
    3. Douglas Zhihua Zeng, 2010. "Building Engines for Growth and Competitiveness in China : Experience with Special Economic Zones and Industrial Clusters," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2501, December.
    4. Brandt, Loren & Thun, Eric, 2010. "The Fight for the Middle: Upgrading, Competition, and Industrial Development in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(11), pages 1555-1574, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chun Yang, 2020. "The transformation of foreign investment-induced ‘exo(genous)-urbanisation’ amidst industrial restructuring in the Pearl River Delta, China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(3), pages 618-635, February.
    2. Butollo, Florian & Staritz, Cornelia, 2022. "Deglobalisierung, Rekonfiguration oder Business as Usual? COVID-19 und die Grenzen der Rückverlagerung globalisierter Produktion [Deglobalization, reconfiguration, or business as usual? COVID-19 an," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 393-425.
    3. Butollo, Florian, 2021. "Digitalization and the geographies of production: Towards reshoring or global fragmentation?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 25(2), pages 259-278.
    4. John Pickles & Leonhard Plank & Cornelia Staritz & Amy Glasmeier, 2015. "Trade policy and regionalisms in global clothing production networks," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 8(3), pages 381-402.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Giorgio Prodi & Francesco Nicolli & Federico Frattini, 2020. "Embeddedness and local patterns of innovation: evidence from Chinese prefectural cities," Economic Complexity and Evolution, in: Andreas Pyka & Keun Lee (ed.), Innovation, Catch-up and Sustainable Development, pages 283-307, Springer.
    2. Giorgio Prodi & Federico Frattini & Francesco Nicolli, 2018. "The diffusion and embeddedness of innovative activities in China," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 35(1), pages 71-106, April.
    3. Florian BUTOLLO, 2013. "Moving Beyond Cheap Labour? Industrial and Social Upgrading in the Garment and LED Industries of the Pearl River Delta," Journal of Current Chinese Affairs - China aktuell, Institute of Asian Studies, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 42(4), pages 139-170.
    4. Giorgio Prodi & Francesco Nicolli & Federico Frattini, 2017. "State restructuring and subnational innovation spaces across Chinese prefectures," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 35(1), pages 94-112, February.
    5. Ten Brink, Tobias & Butollo, Florian, 2018. "A great leap? Domestic market growth and local state support in the upgrading of China's LED lighting industry," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 18(2), pages 285-306.
    6. Benno Ferrarini, 2013. "Vertical Trade Maps," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 27(2), pages 105-123, June.
    7. Can Huang & Naubahar Sharif, 2016. "Global technology leadership: The case of China," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 43(1), pages 62-73.
    8. Robert Stehrer & Roman Stöllinger, 2013. "Positioning Austria in the Global Economy: Value Added Trade, International Production Sharing and Global Linkages," FIW Research Reports series V-002, FIW.
    9. Keun Lee & Di Qu & Zhuqing Mao, 2021. "Global Value Chains, Industrial Policy, and Industrial Upgrading: Automotive Sectors in Malaysia, Thailand, and China in Comparison with Korea," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 33(2), pages 275-303, April.
    10. Danai Christopoulou & Nikolaos Papageorgiadis & Chengang Wang & Georgios Magkonis, 2021. "IPR Law Protection and Enforcement and the Effect on Horizontal Productivity Spillovers from Inward FDI to Domestic Firms: A Meta-analysis," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 235-266, April.
    11. De Backer, Koen & Miroudot, Sébastien, 2014. "Mapping global value chains," Libros de la CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), number 37176.
    12. Tieng Kimseng & Amna Javed & Chawalit Jeenanunta & Youji Kohda, 2020. "Sustaining Innovation through Joining Global Supply Chain Networks: The Case of Manufacturing Firms in Thailand," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(13), pages 1-17, June.
    13. Charlotte Keijser & Michiko Iizuka, 2018. "Looking Beyond Global Value Chains in Capacity Development: The Case of the IT-Enabled Service (ITES) Sector in South Africa," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 30(3), pages 442-461, July.
    14. Chun Yang, 2013. "From Strategic Coupling to Recoupling and Decoupling: Restructuring Global Production Networks and Regional Evolution in China," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(7), pages 1046-1063, July.
    15. Pietrobelli, Carlo, 2019. "Modern industrial policy in Latin America: Lessons from cluster development policies," MERIT Working Papers 2019-031, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    16. Lord, Montague, 2012. "Evaluation of Support to Lao PDR’s Special Economic Zones (SEZs)," MPRA Paper 61053, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Hassan Sallahuddin, 2018. "Fdi Oriented Exports And Role Of Free Industrial Zones In Malaysia," Post-Print hal-03455842, HAL.
    18. Carlo Pietrobelli & Cornelia Staritz, 2018. "Upgrading, Interactive Learning, and Innovation Systems in Value Chain Interventions," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 30(3), pages 557-574, July.
    19. Shengjun Zhu & Canfei He, 2016. "Global and local governance, industrial and geographical dynamics: A tale of two clusters," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(8), pages 1453-1473, December.
    20. Lu, Ren & Ruan, Min & Reve, Torger, 2016. "Cluster and co-located cluster effects: An empirical study of six Chinese city regions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 1984-1995.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:cjrecs:v:8:y:2015:i:3:p:521-536.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/cjres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.