Growth Of The Asian Tigers - Geography and Economics A-Level

The term Asian Tigers, refers to Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore an Hong Kong.

The term was becoming widely used in the 70s and 80s following the emergence of these four countries who all followed a similar pattern of development to becoming developed countries. These countries For example Singapore is now one of the world leading financial centres.

None of these countries had a rich supply of ntural resources. They followed a very export driven model of industrialization by focusing on selling to rich western countries such as the UK and USA. They decided that to boost the manufacturing industry they would have to tap in to economies of scale and therefore rely on international trade. In trading to a larger market they could improve efficiency through E.O.S. This model is different to conventional models of the time which involved imposing raised tariffs and quota on imports which reduced the number of imports and thus allowing the domestic industries to flourish and develop. Although the Asian Tigers did use this model at first before switching heavily to an export driven model.

These countries all had similar characteristics which included:

• GDP growth rate from 1960 to 2000 averaged 6% per year 
• abundance of cheap labour due to being poor in 1960
• all invested heavily in education, this can increase LRAS and increase productivity
• all had strong Chinese influences
• non democratic political systems meaning plans were driven through easily

But is this a good model to follow?

There are many criticisms of this export led model which include:

• dependency on other countries economic health can be very risky
• fast expansion of these countries caused problems such as a in 1990 many stock markets crashed and sparked a worldwide financial crisis
• Rapid industrialization has caused many environmental problems
• Lost competitive edge to India and China who can now create at cheaper unit costs. 

The new era of  Asian Tigers (Tiger Cubs)

It is said that Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand are also following the export led growth model.

It is predicted that these 4 countries will be in the top 50 economies in the world by 2050.

Due to a high number of Chinese entrepreneurs and residents, the transformation of China has led to increased investment.