From the 1980s, multinational manufacturers increasingly relocated labor-intensive production, including textiles, electronics assembly, and consumer goods, to lower-wage economies in East and Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Mexico. Governments in these regions encouraged the shift by establishing export processing zones and special economic zones offering tax incentives and streamlined customs procedures. The trend was enabled by cheaper container shipping, improving telecommunications for coordinating distant factories, and trade liberalization that lowered import tariffs in consuming countries. It reshaped global labor markets and made consumer goods supply chains dependent on long-distance ocean and air logistics.
Relevance to Trade History
Manufacturing offshoring made the Global South central to international supply chains and drove sustained growth in long-haul container and air freight volumes.
Read the full story in our article Container Shipping and the Modern Supply Chain.
Source: World Bank, trade and development research. See our Sources & Methodology page for how we select and verify references.