contrary to the domestic capitals driven nature of Japanese technological development, the growth of electronics technology in the NIEs and in the ASEAN4 countries has been largely induced by the inflow of FDI from more advanced countries. Consequently, the process of industrial technological development has been considerably influenced by the strategies followed by the foreign investors.

This problem will be treated more in detail in the following sections with regard to the industrial transfer occurring from Japan to Malaysia. For the moment what should be pointed out is that, when the high technology intensity and its very fast velocity of change are main peculiarities of an industry (like in the case of electronics) the process of industrial and technological development is affected by the inter-relations between the level of competition on international markets and the degree of autonomy from foreign capitals. The catching-up process of Japan, for example, started by borrowing technology from the more advanced USA. However, since investments were originated domestically, technological autonomy could be gradually attained by increasing R&D efforts and Japan could eventually reach the international lead in many productions by rising quality standards.

On the contrary, the capital formation in the electronics industry of other Asian Pacific countries is relying on the inflow of FDI. This condition, however, implies the dependency on the process of technology transfer from the more advanced countries, which is affected by several economic and social factors and usually occurs at a slower pace than the speed of product and process innovation. To this regard, the industrial policies of the recipient countries in combination with the strategies adopted by the foreign investors are of primary importance for the economic development of the former.

The problem of technology transfer is of utmost consequence for the process of industrial development transmission and would require an extensive analysis. However, this topic will not be deepened here but only briefly mentioned with regard to the case of Japanese companies in Asian Pacific countries, since due to a presumed “peculiarity” of the Japanese production and management systems, the recipient countries often complain a scarce will of Japan to transfer the technology. On the one hand, the critics usually refer to the following problems: 1) reluctance to employ local staff in strategic positions; 2) difficulty for local workers to receive a proper technical training $ ^{9} $ ; 3) discrimination for local firms to participate as subcontractors to the production network of the Japanese MNEs. On the other hand, it must be observed that the process of technology transfer is limited by two main problems which are internal to the developing countries. First, in order to attract FDI, local governments usually adopt incentive policies which privilege 100% export-oriented projects and allow the total free-tax provision of intermediate goods from the investing countries. Such policies, in turn, discourage the creation of industrial linkages and the spread out of technological spillovers $ ^{10} $ . Second, the absorption capability of the transferred technology is often limited by the scanty availability of skilled labor and the absence of local firms able to provide the quality standards required by the Japanese investors $ ^{11} $ .

## The NIEs

Closer to the Japanese pattern of electronics industrial development, which can be assumed as totally autonomous from foreign capitals and highly competitive on international