- The UNIDO Industrial Development Scoreboard focuses on benchmarking 87
countries in terms of their national ability to produce manufactures competitively
and in terms of structural factors affecting their industrial capabilities.
It includes industrialized, developing and transition economies and covers
two years, 1985 and 1998.
- The competitive industrial performance index (CIP) to benchmark industrial
performances of economies is constructed from four basic indicators of industrial
performance including manufacturing value added per capita; manufacturing
exports per capita; share of medium and high-tech activities in manufacturing
value added; and the share of medium- and high-tech products in manufactured
exports.
- Ranking economies by the CIP index reveals relative stability of economy
rankings over the period, indicating that industrial performance is the outcome
of slow and incremental processes. There is a general and expected pattern
of industrialized economies congregate near the top, transition and middle-income
developing economies around the middle, and low-income developing and least
developed economies at the bottom.
- Looking at the regional averages for developing economies, East Asia leads
the CIP ranking in 1998, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle
East, North Africa and Turkey, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
- There are also notable examples of improvements in industrial performances
experienced by middle-income developing economies: China, Costa Rica, Malaysia,
Mexico, the Philippines and Thailand.
- Low-income economies have not moved up the technology ladder, remaining
at the bottom of the industrial performance scale. The gap between them and
other developing economies widened, pointing to a growing industrial divergence
within developing economies.
- Among the least developed countries, Bangladesh and Nepal had stable rankings
over the period, due to the upgrading of the technological structure of their
exports. For most other countries, the picture is less sanguine.
- Industrial production and manufactured exports within developing economies
are highly concentrated. The top 5 countries account for 60 percent of developing
country industrial production and 61 percent of exports. By contrast, the
bottom 30 countries account for only 2 and 1 percent, respectively. Most worrying,
these shares declined during 1985–1998.
- The shares of technology-intensive industrial products in exports increased
faster than in industrial production, reflecting the increasing trend toward
the internalization of production process.
- Only 16 of 58 developing courtiers in the sample have shown dynamic production
and export structures, with increasing shares of technology-intensive products,
while 42 countries had a similar technological structure in 1998 as that in
1985. Dynamic countries include Argentina, Costa Rica, Mexico, Brazil, Saudi
Arabia, Turkey, South Africa, India, Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, Republic of
Korea, China, Taiwan Province of China, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.
- There is no clear evidence of industrial competitiveness compromising the
environment. Whilst stronger industrial performers tend to pollute more due
to higher share of industrial activity in economy, they also appear to be
more efficient in controlling industrial waste. None of the top countries
in the CIP rankings is among the top 15 polluters in GNP units. Transition
economies are placed in the middle of the ranking and have bad environmental
record. Developing countries, by contrast, seem to pollute less, mainly due
to lack of industrial activity rather than environmental awareness.
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