Motoko Kawano - National Graduate Institution for Policy Studies, Tokyo, Japan

Malaysia‘s rapid economic growth, often attributed to FDI-led export-oriented industrialization, has received asignificant contribution from natural resource-based industry. In particular rubber was as important to theMalaysian economy as it was to the global automobile industry. From the late twentieth century, however, theawareness of the risks of HIV/AIDS, SARS, and avian influenza raised the global demand for medical rubbergloves. By focusing on two top medical glove companies, this study shows how Malaysia‘s rubber productmanufacturing has been successfully expanded and transformed. The chapter demonstrates that the firms tookadvantage of fortuitous external demand conditions and internal technological support from government R&Dinstitutions to achieve technological upgrading quickly. It is argued more generally that the sustainabledevelopment of natural resource-based industries in emerging economies will require, among others,entrepreneurial capabilities and close public-private relationships.

Rubber Industry, Technological Upgrading, Emergning economies, Public-plivate relationship of R&D, entrepreneurial capabilities