Taiwan: Some spatial implications rapid economic growth

Enthusiasm for economic development in newly-industrializing countries is tempered by the thought of enhanced regional disparities which seem to inevitably accompany such processes. A breakthrough from being consigned such an outcome is possible if the country can successfully switch from import-substitution industrialization to that centered on export promotion. Conceptually, such an amended course would allow for the diversification of regional economies and the development of regional cities associated with the export trade. Under this scenario, the necessity to bolster a core industrial region — almost always focused on the capital city — is made redundant and national strategies can officially espouse regional development targets with some chance of success. Taiwan is both a stellar performer among the newly-industrializing countries and a subscriber to the export-promotion school. It affords, then, an obvious case study for assessing the degree of core-periphery disparity in economic activities. Additionally, its government is much given to declaring the benefits of industrialization for the populace, and has gone a considerable way to provide manufacturing decentralization by means of a string of development districts peppering the island and a number of ‘mega-proj ects’ of the industrial complex kind. An analysis of the distribution of employment engendered between 1975 and 1985 is forthcoming with both optimistic and cautionary results. In the first case, the degree of spatial concentration in growth activities — and especially manufacturing — has ameliorated but, secondly, the proviso remains that the momentum of growth enjoyed by the core is sufficient to guarantee that favored region a disproportionate share of the job prospects thrown up by the ‘economic miracle’.