East Asia as an independent engine of growth: prospects and implications for managers

States that since the mid‐1980s, substantial deregulation and competitive liberalization of the South‐East Asian economies in their trade and investment regimes has resulted in greater integration of their economies with the North‐East Asian economies. Proposes that, together with the rising purchasing power of the expanding middle class, massive infrastructural development, as well as the expansion in intra‐regional trade and investment, East Asia has emerged as an independent centre of growth in the global economy since the early 1990s. Presents empirical evidence on the rise of this autonomous growth momentum. Contends that, no longer a mere wagon hitched to the locomotive of the US and European economy, East Asia′s emerging independent engine of growth has tremendous implications for executives of multinationals keen to expand market share and form strategic alliances with companies in East Asia. Submits that it also has implications for fund managers in the OECD countries keen to look to the region for asset diversification and higher returns.