2 results
13 - Danok-Bukit Kayu Hitam, Twin Border Towns on the Thailand-Malaysia's Border
- from Part III - NEW NODES OF ECONOMIC CORRIDORS: URBAN PAIRS AND TWIN BORDER CITIES
-
- By Abdul Rahim Anuar, Associate Professor, College of Law, Government & International Studies, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Muszafarshah Mohd Mustafa, Senior Lecturer at Universiti Utara Malaysia, Amel Farhat, Ph.D. candidate, National University of Singapore
- Edited by Nathalie Fau, Sirivanh Khonthapane, Christian Taillard
-
- Book:
- Transnational Dynamics in Southeast Asia
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 03 November 2017
- Print publication:
- 12 November 2013, pp 321-337
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Cross-border twin cities have a particular spatial organization in the sense that geographic proximity is an intermingling factor of urban areas and economic interdependence allowing a transnational development. Their transnational setting, i.e. through a border, covers a multiscalar approach on a provincial scale (within a State) on the one hand, and a regional scale on the other, combining at least two States. This kind of urban layout therefore leads to a spatial reorganization networking a new regional territory which responds to the economic guidelines of partner States (Raffestin 1974; Taillard 2010). Infrastructure networking, administrative harmonization, respective comparative advantages and complementarities have made these urban areas a layout that may support an economic dynamism specific to transnational regions (Maneepong et al. 2004; Taillard 2010; Goldblum et al. 2007). The border is thus no longer exclusively a component of separation, but may also turn into a spatial bridge between two bordered provinces (Arnold 2010).
Among the twin towns bordering Thailand and Malaysia, the Danok- Bukit Kayu Hitam pair may have the greatest potential to be developed into a major growth area. Although the urban and economic layouts fall into the category of a twin city, it has not however been officially stated by the Malaysian and Thai governments so far. It is thus by no means as institutionalized as those at the southern boundary of China, which are discussed in more detail by Sébastien Colin in this book. This study aims to investigate how the twin cities of Danok and Bukit Kayu Hitam may become a peripheral growth centre for both Thailand and Malaysia, thus promoting sustainable development in the region.
This study is organized according to approaches on different scales (see Map 13.1) The following section will provide a local scale by studying the district location and socio-economic backgrounds of Sadao and Kubang Pasu and the twin cities in question. The second part will cover a comparative analysis of the twin cities to determine whether their status may imply identical dynamics; we shall also touch on the institutional framework of the aforementioned cities.
5 - Regional Disparities, Income Inequality, and Poverty: A Cumulative Causation from Malaysia's Experience
- from Part II - Who are the Poor?
-
- By Asan Ali Golam Hassan, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Muszafarshah Mohd Mustafa, Universiti Utara Malaysia
-
- Book:
- Poverty and Global Recession in Southeast Asia
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 21 October 2015
- Print publication:
- 30 November 2011, pp 106-152
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Changes in economic structure are normally associated with an economy's transformation from an emphasis on agriculture to a more modern, more urbanized, and more industrially diverse manufacturing and services economy. Structural change refers to the relative importance of sectors in the economy such as production and factor use, increases in the rate of accumulation, shifts in the sectoral composition of economic activities (industrialization) focusing initially on the allocation of employment, change in location of economic activities (urbanization) and accompanying demographic transition, decreasing poverty, and inequality in income distribution.
Income inequality and regional disparity happen because of uneven structural change occurring at the same time in different regions. Each region often experiences different patterns of economic and demographic structural changes as well as differences in concentration of population, investment, manufacturing products, labour productivity, and job creation. The levels of regional income have strong linkages with the establishment of the manufacturing sector. Since independence and subsequently after the implementation of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1971, the Malaysian Government has made serious efforts to decentralize manufacturing activities. This is because industrial imbalance has an important relation to the imbalance of household's monthly income, poverty, and unemployment.
Production sources, especially natural resources, capital, and labour, are imperfectly scattered. Many economic activities are concentrated in particular regions, where such regions are an important source of international specialization and trade (Krugman 1999). Uneven regional growth and distribution in the process of structural change are affected by three key factors: firstly, natural resource advantages (imperfect factor mobility), secondly, economies of concentration (imperfect divisibility), and finally, transport and communication (imperfect mobility of goods and services) (Hoover and Giarratani 1999).
Although a study by the World Bank showed that newly industrializing countries, which have rapid export growth and economic growth, have significantly reduced absolute poverty, improved human welfare, and reduced the inequality of income distribution during the thirty years before the onset of the financial crisis in the middle of 1997 (World Bank 1993; Nakao 1997; Ishak 2000), it did not show how this rapid growth creates inequality of economic growth among regions in that particular country. In other words, the general relationship between economic growth and poverty reduction is clear: growth will decrease poverty (World Bank 2001, p. 52). However, rapid growth did not occur in all regions but was restricted to manufacturing-based regions.