The spectacular Southeast Asian economic take-off

A retrospective of the spectacular Southeast Asian economic take-off

Extracts from a retrospective on the spectacular economic take-off of Southeast Asian countries are reviewed and assessed for their potential application to countries in the MENA region.

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By Prof.  Rédha Younes Bouacida, Doctor of Economics from Aix Marseille University, France

The above image is for illustration – credit Getty

In developing countries that are lagging in science and technology, the external part (the absorption of external knowledge) is dominant because of the low level of human skills and the R&D efforts that limit the increase in the stock of knowledge.

Indeed, scientific and technological skills have become indispensable for growth and development.

Therefore, building skills and capacities is one of the significant and decisive elements in economic performance, both company and macroeconomic performance.

This trend is linked to the role of the development of the knowledge economy, where institutions and organisations promoting education and skills training, funding for research and innovation, regulation and intellectual property regimes are strategic elements to encourage innovation and create wealth.

This has affected the areas of intervention of public authorities within countries and the need to establish innovation policies to construct a knowledge-based economy.

At the microeconomic level, these upheavals have also affected companies and their ways of operating, resulting in the development of innovative, economically competitive companies.

Thus, economic emergence is linked to improving the workforce’s skills, producing and disseminating knowledge in companies and the economy, reproducing efficient practices, and improving product quality and production processes.

As the two economists Haudeville and Younes Bouacida (2015) explain, “their implementation requires significant capital for investment, training and research. They are the result of a genuine investment process, in the same way as that which allows the development of natural resources. Only the object is different; in one case, it is the development of natural resources; in the other, the development of human capacities.” Finally, economic emergence is linked to the culture of development and collective values within society.

Indeed, it now seems increasingly clear in developing countries that development no longer depends solely on economic or political parameters but also on the collective values and the culture of development of the population and society in general. The experience of Asian countries, which have been able to emerge from underdevelopment in the long term, has shown that they have achieved this result only with the work capacity of their people.

Indeed, these populations were disciplined and animated by national interest. Their cultural traits were optimism about the future and enthusiasm for development. As the economist Casson (1993) points out, collective values influence a society’s economic performance by creating moral cohesion.

This therefore presupposes work, seriousness in work, respect for the dignity of the human person which allows for greater harmony in society, and finally, respect for the laws and rules in force and action for the general interest. Ultimately, emergence is an essential step in the trajectory that leads a developing country towards economic development.

The example of Southeast Asian countries, or that of China today, illustrates this phenomenon. These countries have been able to adapt the variables of skills and capacity, innovation, and progress to their context and have successfully ensured a good development policy.

Favoured by the culture of development and the collective values of their populations and society, they have been able to go back over a few decades on the path that separated them from technological frontiers and position themselves there in the long term in the same way as developed countries. These examples thus make it possible to identify universally valid rules for moving from underdevelopment to development.

 

Continue reading in El Watan in French

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