تقسیم کار منطقه ای از منظر تراکم اقتصاد : برخی شواهد

This study aims at elaborating the evolving degree of completeness of outward investment of manufacturing and its consequence from the view of regional development since the People’s Republic of China opened her door to foreign direct investment. After two decades of Hong Kong’s progressive manufacturing cross-border processing of labor-intensive operations performed in the proximate Guangdong province, a regional division of labor has developed by taking advantages of the agglomeration economies of the Hong Kong-Pearl River Delta region. The analysis is conducted based on such a perspective using the 1998 data of a population of 2,441 electronics joint ventures in Guangdong. Findings suggested that firms’ location (density) distribution, via exploiting the agglomeration economies, followed a pattern well explained by a simple gravity model with Hong Kong as the main core. The existing Pearl River Delta cities and the associated cluster economies have also demonstrated attraction for foreign direct investment. Firm size and age effects were also investigated. The findings confirmed the economic contributions of electronics joint ventures, the small ones in particular, to the development of Guangdong and the Hong Kong-Pearl River Delta region. Some suggestions on regional policy coordination were initiated.

The “passive” industrial policy adopted by the Hong Kong (HK) government during the past two decades had served as a push factor for the HK manufacturing to invest in the nearby Guangdong province via cross-border operations (CBOs) in order to save costs (Tuan and Ng, 1995c). The results of which were the restructure of the HK industrial sector in production and employment (Tuan and Ng, 1995d) and industrial competitive patterns (Ng, 1995). Such heavy outward investment (foreign direct investment, FDI) of HK’s manufacturers especially of small/medium size enterprises (SMEs) was proven to be a major factor in changing the manufacturing industrial structure and technology (Ng and Tuan, 1997b). Nevertheless, trade and in particular the cross-border trade (or outward processing trade) generated by the cross-border operations, remained to be a significant factor in contributing to HK’s economic growth since the 1980s (Tuan and Ng, 1998).

Although further studies can still be performed to investigate and exhaust the causes, effects, and contributions of such a regional labor division and “off-shore” manufacturing phenomenon in the peripheral PRD and its relations to the sustained economic growth of HK, the findings of this study reveal the significance of clustering behavior (around the urban core) of JVs and the agglomeration effects (within the boundary) of the core-periphery system. Specifically, the gravity model analysis illustrated that proximity to a city core seems to always be the dominant concern for firm location selection. To smaller firms and relatively more labor intensive JVs, the conclusion is even more affirmative. In other words, this indicates the critical importance of accessibility to a center in providing agglomeration economies with regard to location decisions for manufacturing enterprises in general, and small and labor-intensive ones in particular.