Sanjaya Lall

Promoting Industrial Competitiveness in Developing Countries : Lessons from Asia : No. 39 Sanjaya Lall

As developing countries have started to open up their economies, concern about competitiveness has spread to their policy makers. Their relative competitiveness as production and investment sites has become a prime focus of development policy. They are, moreover, faced with a world in which the main determinants of competitiveness are changing rapidly.

Competition has intensified due to rapidly falling transport and communication costs, and the performance of economies, industries and firms is constantly compared and bench-marked across nations. So are determinants of competitiveness. These and related issues are analysed in detail in this report.

It describes the micro-foundations of competitiveness and enterprise, and translates the lessons to the national level.