A Study On The Southeast Asia's Auto Industry And The Technological Advance In GPNs

With the rapid development of the manufacture Globalization and the advance of the logistic and the information technology, global production networks are booming, and the competition between enterprises depends on GPNs. The leading MNCs make use of some business advantages, like technology standards, to govern the complex supply chains. They put suppliers and contractors in the different valued-added knots of the net, and to some contest control the return and the technologic improvement of suppliers in host countries. China has become the famous "the world factory" for a long time, it is the time for the country to ponder how to get away from low-value-added products, how to upgrade the technology level, develop its own global brands, and prevent some industries which concern the national economic safety from the impact of GPNs.The economies of Southeast Asia, like Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Philippines, are similar with China in the industry structures and fundamental economies. They opened more markets in the globalization and joined the GPNs earlier, especially when they embedded their automobile industry into the GPN, they have learnd deep lessons from the international technology transfer and local technology upgrading. Studying on the topic is important for China to optimize the global investment strategy and improve the competition of Chinese enterprises.The author tries to prove the presence of the GPNs in the Southeast Asia, through some international trade data, case researches and casual observations. About the automobile industry in the area, the paper will get some conclussions, analyze the GPNs built up by Toyota and GM, and illustrate the technology transfer channels and some factors advancing the local suppliers' technology under the new environment. The main conclusions from the paper are the followings:1. The GPNs have been built up and are becoming wider and deeper in the Southeast Asia. The intra-area trade is rising, especially the semi finished products" share, there are more and more offshore affiliates found in the area, the trade agreements and triangle trade deepened the GPNs.2. The auto industry' GPNs were found in the area, most of the auto MNCs, including Toyota and GM, have built up their own GPNs in the Southeast Asia, however, the auto industries in the area show the different development trends because of the different resource advantages, industry policies and the varied leading MNCs' strategies.3. During the development of the auto GPNs in the Southeast Asia, we found different characteristics in the local enterprises' study of international technology, it shows that it is not a singly-way process for the technology transfer in the GPNs, we must focus on the national foreign capital policies, the industry policies, the active attitude and the basic technologic ability besides asking for the technology transfer from the MNCs.