East Asia-Pacific’s Participation in the Global Value Chain for Electronic Products

Author(s)

Mihir P. Torsekar, John VerWey

This paper traces the East Asia-Pacific (EAP) region’s participation in the global value chain (GVC) for electronic products over the past 20 years, with particular attention to trade in intermediate goods and recent foreign direct investment (FDI) into the region. During this time, China has been the principal driver of the GVCs for electronic products. However, recent increases in China’s production costs have created opportunities for other countries in the region—such as Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam—to increase their participation in the sector’s GVC. In discussing these trends, this paper uses the World Bank’s Measuring Competitiveness in Global Value Chains (MC-GVC) database and provides a case study on the development of the semiconductor industry’s presence in the EAP region to illustrate the region’s role in the GVC for electronic products.