The industrial complex revisited: Petrochemicals in Taiwan

• Published in: Geoforum 1992, Vol.23 (1), p.29-40
• Main Authors: Todd, Daniel, Hsueh, Yi-Chung
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Industrial production; Petrochemical industry; Taiwan
• ISSN: 0016-7185; 1872-9398
• DOI: 10.1016/0016-7185(92)90034-2

The industrial complex promises economic advantages to both the firms involved and the communities within which it is located. A further characteristic, one appealing to planners intent on regional balance, is its purported ability to moderate regional disparities by enacting an industrial programme of such a magnitude as to be capable of reversing the tilt in economic development towards the core. While the fortunes of industrial complexes in advanced countries have been decidedly mixed, they remain potent symbols of industrialization in those countries which have recently espoused this road to development. They retain their cogency as a result of their claim to economies of scale and scope, to say nothing of the fusion of agglomeration benefits which seems to find its most practical expression within them. For some industries, petrochemicals not least among them, these advantages are shown in an especially favourable light when wedded to port expansion. The economies attendant on the industrial complex are added to those of efficient terminal operations and the resultant port industrial complex bodes well for a number of industrial and spatial goals. The network of plants investing in the Taiwanese port city of Kaohsiung, with a major petrochemical industry, is used in this paper as an example of an industrial complex of sufficient maturity to be investigated. As a precursor to petrochemical complexes throughout developing Asia, the Kaohsiung case serves to expose the pitfalls as well as the strengths of such a complex. On the one hand, it has never failed to bolster the emerging petrochemical industry and, in so doing, has increased substantially the city's workforce and well-being. On the other hand, however, is the finding that Kaohsiung's growth has not materially disturbed the core-periphery disparities prevailing on the island. The industrial complexes in the city are manifestly not the means to cause a structural change of that magnitude. Policies which place a premium on economic efficiency will continue to make use of industrial complexes, but there is little likelihood that these devices, once implemented, will produce anything more than local spread-effects.