NSF 95-309
This indicator evaluates the strength of a nation's current, in-place manufacturing infrastructure as a baseline for assessing its capacity for future growth in high-tech activities. It factors in
expert opinion on the availability of skilled labor, numbers of indigenous high-tech companies, and management capabilities in the country, combined with published data on current electronics production in each country.
Singapore's productive capacity scored the highest among the NIEs, elevated by the experts' high opinion of this country's pool of labor and management personnel. (See figure 19.) South Korea scored higher than both Taiwan and Hong Kong by virtue of its higher score on the variable measuring electronics manufacturing.[31]
 Figure 19 |
Malaysia once again stood out among the EAEs - in fact, its score was closer to that of the NIEs than to any in the group of emerging Asian economies. India also scored quite high compared to the
other countries in this group, supported by its comparatively large electronics manufacturing industry and-once again-by its tradition of training its students in science and engineering.
31. This is consistent with trends discussed earlier about these economies' sales of advanced technology products in the United States.
