3 Comments

1. Paul Montgomery

   February 23, 2011

   Is it just that value-added exports are growing, or is it also that raw resources exports are falling because they're plowing their resources back into VAEs? I feel like we'd need graphs of resources exports as well to make better sense of it.

2. Nicholas Gruen

   February 23, 2011

   I'm sure we do - and you're welcome to go hunting for them. I just stuck this up because it looked interesting.

3. Peter T

   February 25, 2011

   Old news.

   Start with textiles.
   Then go to simple manufactures (nowadays most commonly plastic moulding)
   Then to fault-tolerant mechanical (like refrigerators or air-conditioners)
   and to electronic assembly.
   Then to electronic fabrication.
   Then to cars (Great Wall ute), as a step to precision heavy machinery.
   At each step have government act as lead purchaser/sponsor until the process has been ironed out.
   Australia bought very large x-rays from China eight years ago - they performed as well or better than anything American or European, at roughly one third the cost. Initially made for the Chinese government; now sold to around 30 countries.

   Japan, Korea, Taiwan last century.

   France, Germany, Italy the one before.

   There's a rhythm to these things.