and telecommunication industries which require high technological skills and extreme flexibility to changes. Advanced technology requirements, availability of capital to be invested in R&D and of human resources with the necessary skill and experience, as well as big dimensions and economies of scale concur to form strong entry barriers in electronics. International competition is usually a game among giants, largely diversified and integrated companies capable to transmit the innovations and their costs from the research centres to the process of industrial application. Innovation, in particular, occurs both in product and process technology and in recent years peculiar activities are those of “product engineering” and “product development” $ ^{5} $ .

2) A second peculiar characteristic of electronics lies on the high degree of backward and forward linkages occurring not only at the inter-industry level but also among the several productions of the industry itself (intra-industry level). In particular, forward linkages (created by inputs-supplying industries) imply the spread out of the technology originated by the internal R&D activity and benefit more or less directly all the sectors of the economy. On the other side, backward linkages (created by inputs-requiring industries) help to the upgrading of the industrial structure by widening the domestic demand. Electronic parts and particularly microelectronics stand for the typical example of forward linkages. They serve in fact as basic inputs not only to the other sub-sectors of electronics (consumer and industrial goods), but also to several other industries, like machinery and transport equipment. The typical case of backward linkages is that of electrical and electronics equipment industry. Take for example products like stereos or television sets: their assembly process requires a very high number of parts and components sourced from electronics as well as from other industries, like plastic and metal manufacturing. A more complex shape of backward and forward linkages occur in the telecommunication and computer industries as they include both intermediate and final products, demanding inputs from several industries and supplying sophisticated machines and apparatus for industrial or private consumption use. Furthermore, they present a large spectrum of forward linkages with activities of the manufacturing and of the service sectors, including commerce, tourism, information, software applications, and so on.

3) A third characteristic of the electronics industry concerns the very large use of intermediate goods. Although high quality standards are usually required, parts and components are in general easily disposable in production lines and are not subject to physical deterioration. Moreover, due to the light weight and the relatively small size of the products, the transport cost does not particularly weigh on the industrial location policy of the firms $ ^{6} $ . These peculiarities help in turn to facilitate the decision from multinational enterprises (MNEs) to relocate to the developing countries only one part of the whole production process through flows of FDI. A typical case is that of assembly operations, which normally imply the production for export markets, also including the case of re-import towards the investing country. The result is a very complex shape of the trade pattern: the investing country, through the network of its foreign affiliates, exports capital and intermediate goods to import final products. This also concur to strengthen the interdependence between the countries where the complementary industrial production activities are located. Therefore, the very high degree of intra-industry and intra-firm trade and the flows of FDI may be