Asia & Pacific

New Zealand's Economic Development Minister, Jim Anderton recently announced new funding to assist the New Zealand Health IT cluster to build up the capability of its companies in an effort to significantly accelerate the growth of the sector.

During a meeting held Thursday June, South Korean Commerce Minister Lee Hee-beom announced that his government will invest an annual 100 billion won to develop six industrial next-generation clusters across the nation.

Michael Porter will attend a forum in China in June to share his visions with growing Chinese enterprises.

At a recent meeting with the Thai Competitiveness Committee, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra expressed displeasure over the slow development of the industry cluster programme, which was initiated last year to build competitiveness of Thai products, a source from the Government House said.

The National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) in Gandhinagar, the capital of the western Indian region of Gurajat, is initiating more cluster developments due to the impressive results from other such projects.

The Institute of Developing Economies (IDE) in Japan, under its current mandate to provide for the “expansion of trade relations and [to] promote economic cooperation with all developing countries and regions,” is currently embarking upon a major research project that could provide valuable insight into the true impact clusters have had on the Asian economy.

Early december the new export development plan was being presented before the Phillipine House of Representatives. Centerpiece of the strategy unfolded in the new plan is industry clustering.

During the seventies textiles were Korea's number one export item accounting for nearly half of total exports. Since then the numbers have decreased to only one quarter of what they were some thirty years ago. For some time Korean textile companies pondered how they might weave a stronger future for the industry, now it seems their thoughts have been answered ... by the WTO.

The lower costs associated with open source systems have led to more companies, particularly SMEs, opting for Linux based servers and programs. Growing high tech markets like India have seen a shift towards open systems, with upwards of 30% of all servers sold in the country being Linux based.

Broadcom Corp. recently revealed its plans to build a new $800 million R&D center in Taiwan. This is not only a significant financial boost to Taiwan?s high-tech chip cluster, but it marks a major advance for the region ? as this will be the first facility of its kind in the Asia-Pacific region.