Ownership, Technological Capabilities and Exports of Garment Firms in Myanmar

Abstract

This paper uses the evolutionary framework to examine the relationship between ownership, technological capabilities and export intensities using garment manufacturing in the Least Developed Country of Myanmar as an empirical case. The results show that foreign firms with production connected to global value chains enjoy higher export intensity than national firms even when controlled for age. Also, foreign firms with access to superior support from parent plants enjoy higher technology capability than national firms even after controlling for age. The Levene's two-tail ‘t’ tests show that foreign firms also enjoyed higher human resource, process technology and adaptive capabilities than national firms. Foreign firms are also larger and pay higher wages than national firms. The results show that foreign firms’ superior market access and technological capabilities can offer the potential for knowledge spillover to national firms provided the government stabilizes the political situation and strengthens the basic and high technology infrastructure in Myanmar. Unlike the Maquiladoras of Latin America, not only that a quarter of the inputs are sourced by garment firms from Myanmar, a handful of national firms have already acquired the export and technological capabilities to compete with foreign firms.

Assesment of the Industry Competitiveness of the Baltic States in the Eu During the Period of Economic Recession

“…assessment of competitiveness is economically important due to several reasons: firstly, it is a process enabling to identify the advantages and disadvantages of the economies of the countries seeking a well-balanced and sustainable economic development; secondly, the assessment of competitiveness establishes the background for the creation of effective stimulation measures for the participants of the economy because it identifies the competitive advantages formed by the specificity of goods, services or activities and enables to forecast the ability (or lack thereof) of the industries to cope with the competitive pressure (Malakauskaite, Navickas 2011: 56). The results of the study (Rasiah, Myint 2013) show that foreign firms with the production connected to global value chains enjoy higher export intensity than the national firms even when controlled for age. scientific literature contains different methodologies for the assessment of general industrial competitiveness, namely the complex assessment of the whole industry of a country, cluster analysis and others (Iammarino, McCann 2006;Meiliene, snieska 2010;Bair, Gereffi 2001;Newlands 2003 and others).…”

Bangladeshi clothing manufacturers' technology adoption in the global free trade environment

“…Thus, clothing industry has been one of the most globalized industries, in which producers constantly look for low labor cost around the world. Many companies from the higher wage counties also engage in foreign investment in LCDs to meet the low price requirement by the buyers from developed countries (Rasiah and Myint, 2013).…”

“…Especially, information TA has been found to increase organizational capabilities in agility, ability to innovate and customer service, therefore increase competitive advantage and performance of a firm (Sambamurthy et al , 2003; Luo et al , 2012) Such changes have been gradual yet provided clothing manufactures the competitive edge in the global marketplace by enabling them to offer sophisticated and speedy response to the market demand and quality, value added, products (Rasiah, 2005; Chowdhwry and Yinghong, 2016; de Souza Libânio and Amaral, 2017). Research has also found that foreign investment in LCDs could have a spillover effect and therefore become a source of technological advancement in clothing manufacturing in LCDs (Myint et al , 2015; Rasiah and Myint, 2013).…”

Does the Export-led Growth Hypothesis Hold for Myanmar?

“…Most of the studies are descriptive analyses. For instance, Rasiah and Myint (2013) overview the effects of ownership and technological capabilities on the exports of garment firms in Myanmar. Myint and Rasiah (2012) analyze the effects of foreign capital inflows into Myanmar's garment manufacturing industries on employment, wages and working conditions.…”