limiting the development of production and trade in T&C in the Asian Pacific region since the 1960'. Protectionism from developed countries restricted T&C export which is a pulling factor of the industrialization process of the Asian developing countries.

The Importance of T&C Industry in Asia

The T&C is very important industry in Asia. Table 2 shows the world trade share of major T&C goods of the Asian countries, the EC, and the United States. Asian countries, as well as EC hold very high share. In particular, the share of synthetic fabrics and clothing trade from Asia is about 1/2 of the world total. The Asian countries play a central role in the world T&C industry.

T&C industry is also very important for each of the Asian countries. Table 3 and 4 show the importance of both textile and clothing industry of each Asian country from the production and employment side. In the 1960's, T&C industry was a main engine of economic development in Asia. As to production, its share was twice as large as the world average, and it continues to remain above the average also during the following decade, although its pace has been relatively declining.

The importance of this industry for each country turns out more clear from the viewpoint of production growth rate. While the average production growth rate of Asia was below that of the developing countries as a whole in the 1960's, it became to exceed the average in the later period. Although the share of clothing industry is still below the world average, its growth rate is expected to rise further. However, we should notice that in the interpretation of this table Asia includes East Asia, South East Asia and Middle East, and excludes Japan and Israel, so it includes several countries whose clothing industry is still at an underdeveloped stage.

The great role of T&C industry for Asian countries becomes more clear in employment. In fact employment share of textile industry in the Asian countries is very high: through the 60's to the 80's, as for clothing industry, the growth rate is twice larger than the world average and the employment absorption is expected to increase in the future.

In short, the importance of T&C industry for the Asian economy is very high.

Production and Trade Structure from the 1960's to 1980's

This subsection deals with the changing structure of textile production and trade from the 1960's to the 1980's chiefly by means of a few tables of textile flow matrices among the countries in the Asia Pacific Region, such as Japan, the United States, the Asian NIEs, and the ASEAN countries. EC is also included. Table 2 shows that these regions occupy most of the share in world textile industry. Thus analysis centered on the regions which give the sketch of the production and trade structure in T&C industry. Changing structure of the trade affects the level of domestic supply and demand in several ways in countries concerned. In order to analyze inter-related changes of textile supply and demand both within and between these countries, it is necessary to study the relationship between trade and domestic production and the structure of domestic consumption which affect the trade flow. These world trade matrices show not only trade flows in the region but also the total domestic consumption in a given country and the production for its own domestic market. They enable to