Are Nics the Real Winners of Global Shift?

Newly Industrialised Countries (NICs), are countries whose economies have not yet reached developed or First World economic status but have outpaced other developing countries in terms of their economic growth. Global shift is the movement of different industries across the world, for example the movement of heavy industry from Western Europe to the south-east of Asia. Due to globalisation, which is the interconnectedness of the world, communication between each corner of the world is much easier so operations are easily controlled and co-ordinated and so global shift can happen within very short periods of time and without much difficulty. The main winners in global shift seem to be NICs as it is happening to them and they embrace it. However, if you look at all the other parties involved, another picture starts to appear and NICs may not be as lucky as they first appear to be. All countries and companies linked to global shift have been negatively impacted as well as positively impacted; they just have to weigh the pros against the cons.

One of the main reasons that NICs are seen to be the biggest winners of global shift is the fact that their economies benefit hugely from the foreign investment into their country and generated income from the large amount of jobs created. For example, Ford has many of its car parts assembled in the Philippines and Malaysia. The knock-on effect of this is a further increase in the rate of development of the country. Lots of new highly paid jobs will also then begin to appear as more areas, such as R&D, move to NICs due to the volumes of unemployed university graduates. This can lead to new technologies being created, improvement of skills and labour productivity which is followed by further overall development and an increase in the quality of life. Eventually, if the NICs are given enough time they too will become MEDCs and the industry will then leave their country to the NICs at that point in time (Most likely central