IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v26y1994i1p53-70.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Tale of Two Industries: The Restructuring of Hong Kong's Garment-Making and Electronics Industries

Author

Listed:
  • T L Lui
  • S Chiu

Abstract

In different ways, newly industrialised economies (NIEs) in East Asia are restructuring their industries in response to changes in their comparative advantages and to the changing environment of the global economy. In this paper, an attempt is made to examine the case of Hong Kong through intensive case studies of its garment-making and electronics industries. It is argued that the way the manufacturing industries respond to rising production costs, increasing protectionism, and growing competition from other NIEs is essentially shaped by the ‘politics of production’, at the structural, institutional, as well as organisational levels. With a noninterventionist state, the dominance of small local capital, the arms-length relationship between industrial and financial capital, and the underdevelopment of shop-floor unionism, Hong Kong's manufacturing responds to the changing business environment by developing flexible, labour-intensive production strategies. The success of such strategies hinges upon the ability of the industries to find niches in the world market of consumption which is increasingly characterised by rapid changes in styles.

Suggested Citation

  • T L Lui & S Chiu, 1994. "A Tale of Two Industries: The Restructuring of Hong Kong's Garment-Making and Electronics Industries," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 26(1), pages 53-70, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:26:y:1994:i:1:p:53-70
    DOI: 10.1068/a260053
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a260053
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a260053?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Y. C. Jao, 1974. "Banking and Currency in Hong Kong," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-02199-4, September.
    2. Michael T. Skully (ed.), 1984. "Financial Institutions and Markets in Southeast Asia," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-04118-3, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. David C. Cole, 1988. "Financial Development In Asia," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 2(2), pages 26-47, September.
    2. J L Enos, 1989. "Transfer Of Technology," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 3(1), pages 2-36, March.
    3. Catherine R. Schenk, 1994. "Closing the Hong Kong Gap: the Hong Kong free dollar market in the 1950s," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 47(2), pages 335-353, May.
    4. Ramon Moreno, 1986. "Monetary control without a central bank: the case of Hong Kong," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Spr, pages 17-37.
    5. George, Josephine, 2016. "The Malayan Currency Board, 1938-1967," Studies in Applied Economics 53, The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise.

    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:sae:envira:v:26:y:1994:i:1:p:53-70. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.