‘The global economy has moved on from the Asian Tigers; the present and the future of the global economy now lie elsewhere’. To what extent to you agree with this statement.
(40 marks)
The global economy is the economy of the world, considered as the international exchange of goods and services expressed in monetary units. The Asian Tigers, (Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea) were economically developing states during the 1960’s and 1970’s, and are a rare example of third-world-rapid-development - development that nobody could have predicted 50 years ago! However, does this mean that the global economy still relies on them in the same way? And can there be a practical application for these states in contemporary development, whilst the 20th century threat of emerging markets and financial crisis looms near?
The Asian Tigers were highly considered the first wave of Newly Industrialised Countries (NIC’s), and experienced enormous growth in the 1960’s and 1970’s. They had many appealing factors that found favour with the larger Transnational Corporations (TNC’s) and as a result of which they became the bulk of the workforce for many foreign companies, such as Nike. Above all, their currencies were cheap, and therefore they easily attracted investment from foreign countries that could make more profit. And they were seen as less of a competition in relation to the newly industrialised areas, such as China, which were still using higher wages and therefore a more expensive workforce. There was also the advantage of location. The Asian Tigers were connected to the western world through the Pacific Ocean, which was seized as an opportunity to ship goods and products by sea. These trade routes are still widely used today to ship goods and products from Asia, and technological advances have also seen a dramatic rise in air freight to connect trade, within the