Prof Abe explaining Japan’s GDP growth by periods
Over 200 students and staff gained insights from a Japanese economic expert
during a talk organised by the Centre for Economic Studies on 17 February
2016 at UTAR Kampar Campus.
Titled “Global Value Chains in East Asia”, the talk by Prof Shigeyuki Abe
from Doshisha University, Japan was organised to spur intellectual
discussions amongst staff and students.
During the two-hour talk, the expert on the economic development of Asian
economies pointed out the widespread use of multinational supply chains for
intermediate goods across Asia. “This constitutes an important part of the
global production system,” he said, further elucidating that two natural
disasters in 2011, namely the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, as
well as the devastating floods in Thailand, revealed the chains’ weaknesses,
as disruptions of parts production in one locality disrupted production of
finished goods and of trade across Asia and beyond. This also resulted in
consumer products such as automobile and digital cameras being adversely
affected the most.
The erudite professor also outlined how the supply chains are developed and
further explored their major problems by analysing detailed trade data for
key export goods. Prof Abe discovered that akin to the domino effect, when
one part of the chain is cut, the entire chain will necessarily be affected
as well. His visits to the flood-affected factories in Thailand as well as
other Southeast Asian emerging economies such as Vietnam and Indonesia
managed to boost his study to be more practical and policy oriented.
Dr Mahmud (left) presenting the UTAR pennant to Prof Abe
“The recent development of trade data by the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development, in particularly those of value-added trade,
have made it possible to re-examine the situation of value chains
constructed in the past decade or so in East Asia,” he explained. Prof Abe
also delineated how East Asian countries have tried to upgrade and to have
more value added to move up the value chain.
The enriching session continued with an interactive Q&A session followed a
souvenir presentation by Faculty of Business and Finance Deputy Dean for R&D
and Postgraduate Programmes Dr Mahmud Bin Hj Abd Wahab to Prof Abe.
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