For a long time, Thailand was under the strong inhibiting influence of patrimonialism, and was unable to develop either agricultural or industrial technology. Even in the period after 1950, patrimonial forces tended to twist the direction of industrial development by the so-called import-substitution policy. Manufactured exports (exclusive of tin) accounted for only 5.4% of total exports as late as 1970.
 A change in government policy towards export promotion, investment in infrastructure, improvement in education and the transfer of technology appears to have started to cause an increasingly rapid development of the most labor-intensive type of manufactures since 1970. The proportion of manufactured exports in total exports increased to 14.6% in 1975 and then to 28.8% by 1980. The rise in this ratio is particularly impressive, since the 1970's was a period in which Thai exports grew at a very high average rate of 11.7% per year.
  In an effort to shed more light on the cause of such a rapid structural change, the author interviewed the managers of 13 Thai corporations in the fall of 1980. The findings are quite interesting.
  First, in the last five years, the productivity of labor-intensive industries tended to increase rapidly coupled with the rapid expansion of exports, where-as most heavy industries failed to raise productivity and remained domestic-market oriented. Secondly, the most important cause of the productivity increase was, according to these managers, the improvement in the quality of labor. This took place in all industries but its effect was felt most dramatically in labor-intensive industries. Finally, one of the important characteristics of the improvement of labor quality was the dramatic reduction of the turn-over ratio. This was caused by changes in managerial attitude, the wage system, paternalistic practices, work conditions at factories and so on, and these were further affected by the lower turn-over ratio. The lower turn-over ratio also encouraged on-the-job training and helped improve productivity.
  Finally, the paper speculates on the future of manufactured exports and its effect on the nature of economic development. Though more time is apparently needed before the Thai economy can develop equitably, the rise of manufactured exports indicates the possibility of such a development in the future.

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 The purpose of this paper is to analyze qualitatively the growth mechanism of the Indonesian economy through a simple growth model, then to evaluate quantitatively from empirical data the major factors which promote economic development.
  GDP growth rate in Indonesia has been accelerating since 1960, mainly due to the rapid expansion of manufacturing industries as well as the steady progress of agriculture. If a high rate of capital accumulation is maintained, manufacturing industries will expand, and hence a high rate of economic growth will be expected. There is no critical supply-side constraint on the promotion of capital accumulation, because exports of oil and agricultural crops are sufficient to finance increasing imports of capital goods. Therefore, whether manufacturing industries continue to grow or not depends primarily on the demand side. If increased sales of manufactured goods on the domestic market are expected, entrepreneurs will try to expand their production. In other words, one of the most important factors for economic development of Indonesia is to increase people's purchasing power of manufactured goods. For this purpose, it is indispensable to create sufficient employment opportunities through the launching of laborintensive export industries.

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 This paper is comprised of three sections. The first contains a cursory review of the balance of trade and current accounts of ASEAN countries in the 1970s, made in order to grasp the salient features of trade imbalances of ASEAN countries. Interestingly, ASEAN's overall balance of trade vis-à-vis Japan has been favourable since the latter half of the '70s, due to the rapidly increasing export of resources including oil from Indonesia and Malaysia. Countries without a surplus of resources for export, namely Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore, have suffered deficits in the balance of trade with Japan. Inasmuch as ASEAN's balance of trade with Japan is on the whole favourable, opportunities exist for these countries to seek a triangular solution through trade including the region and Japan. Thailand's surplus vis-à-vis Indonesia is a case in point.
  Second, a detailed analysis by commodity of exports from Thailand and the Philippines to Japan has been tried with a view to discovering potentials for improvement. The major hope seems to be industrial products.
  Third, somewhat longer-term relations between the pattern of ASEAN trade and the ASEAN and Japanese industrial structures are analysed with a view to finding effective means of economic cooperation by adjusting industrial structure.

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 Factors of export growth are analyzed quantitatively from the demand side for the region of Southeast Asia covering Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Korea. The study depends exclusively on the trade matrix of ESCAP constructed in both current and constant prices for the period 1967-1976. A constant-market-shares analysis, supplemented by import functions, constitutes the analytical framework of the study. This is a demand approach, and its validity is theoretically investigated from the viewpoint of supply-demand equilibrium analysis.
 The seven countries showed in general a favorable export performance for the period of 1967-1976. It is particularly remarkable that all seven countries were able to strengthen their export competitiveness at the micro level, increasing their market shares on the average for individual commodities in individual markets. This micro-level competitiveness was strengthened slightly by favorable market compositions, but weakened considerably by unfavorable commodity compositions, resulting in moderated export competitiveness at the overall macro level. The Philippines, which experienced an overall share decrease, is a weak example of the "aggregation paradox." The share increases at the micro level were caused mainly by the scale effect, which reflects non-price competitiveness, rather than by the price effect, which reflects price competitiveness.

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 This paper considers the causes and limits of successful economic development in Asian Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs) in the face of changes in the international economic environment.
 Asian NICs had neither superior production technologies, capital, managerial skills nor foreign markets for manufactured goods. It is therefore natural that they had to depend on enterprises in industrialized countries. However, their desire to introduce direct investments from industrialized countries could be realized only if enterprises in industrialized countries were willing to make such investment. In the 1960s, when technical innovations did not emerge and existing technologies were rapidly transferred to other industrialized countries through licence and direct investment, those wishing to survive and to grow under the severe competition had incentives for direct investment in Asian NICs that offered such conditions as political stability, and better and cheaper labor. Thus the international economic environment provided better conditions for Asian NICs in the 1960s and in the first half of the 1970s.
 In the latter half of the 1970s, the international economic environment changed markedly : frequent trade conflicts arose between members of the economic triangle comprising the U. S., the E. C. and Japan; economic growth in industrialized countries slowed mainly due to the oil crisis of 1973; and quasi-NICs emerged in Asia. And the success of Asian NICs brought about rapid wage increases due to the smaller populations in those countries. Under these conditions, Asian NICs have become obliged to make an industrial transformation away from labor-intensive toward capital-intensive or technology-intensive industries. Thus Asian NICs have been, once again, turning to dependence on direct investments from industrialized countries, whose trade is tending toward the "organized" one and which are aiming to promote direct investments between members of the economic triangle in order to avoid trade conflicts.
 Furthermore, past experience of the fade-out policy adopted by Asian NICs may deter new direct investments into them because of the risks involved. Thus it is recommended that Asian NICs should introduce technology and technical guidance rather than direct investment. The emergence of machines with numerical control systems and robots due to technical progress in semiconductors will help Asian NICs to overcome some of the technical barriers.

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 This report aims to clarify the patterns and functions of direct foreign investment made by smallscale Japanese industries in the 1970s. In this decade there were two increasing trends in their investment. In 1972 and 1973 they rushed into Korea with the purpose of producing mainly sundry goods. In the latter part of the 1970s, their target was Singapore, where they engaged in manufacturing parts for electric machinery. In the former, the small industries were independent producers; in the latter, they acted as sub-contractors for larger assemblers. The investments of small Japanese industries should contribute to economic development in developing countries through the transfer of labor habits, labor ethics, technology, management know-how and so forth. Independent producers of sundry goods are useful for developing countries at the stage of industrialization of the labor-intensive light-manufacturing sector, while a number of sub-contractors can support further industrial development there in heavy industries and chemicals. The investment of small industries acting as sub-contractors is particularly noteworthy in representing the transfer of the Japanese pyramid-type production system to developing countries.

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 Nomura, one of the top ten zaibatsu in the prewar period, shared a common problem with other new zaibatsu , namely, to find an outlet abroad because diversification in the domestic market was difficult. Whereas the other new zaibatsu began concentrating their activities in China, Nomura invested in Southeast Asia. Its investment was the largest of all Japanese investments in the Dutch East Indies, and, if not the largest, one of the top few in Southeast Asia as a whole.
 Nomura's main activity was rubber : it purchased a large plantation in Dutch Borneo and refineries near the plantation and in Sumatra. In addition, Nomura owned palm oil and coffee plantations in Sumatra and a rubber-exporting company in Singapore. This article describes each of these activities, by using the data at Nomura Gomei and the survey of Japan's prewar investment undertaken in 1947 by the Ministry of Finance.

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