To maintain competitiveness, companies are rapidly transferring labor-intensive operations into neighboring countries like China, the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia. Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore are rapidly upgrading their production capabilities to utilize advanced component and process technologies. Governments in these three countries are committed to advancing electronics technologies by supporting developments in production equipment, related materials, and components. There are currently eight growth polygons in East and Southeast Asia, and additional triangles are being planned. Four regional triangles have been established since 1989 involving parts of 11 countries.
Regional cooperation provides a competitive model to attract investment and technology.
While these Asian nations are geographically and culturally distinct, each is in the process of improving its infrastructure to support product and process realization, from research and design though manufacturing and marketing. The high-quality jobs provided by the electronics industry provide the incentive to offer foreign companies substantial capital investment opportunities. The newly industrialized economies of Asia are making it attractive for foreign companies to move their most advanced technologies and most capital-intensive facilities there. This can only be followed by growing trade imbalances with the United States. China and India account for over 2 billion people.