The term "growth triangle" came into common use after the then Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore Goh Chok Tong used it in December 1989 to describe the subregional economic cooperation involving Singapore southern Johor in Malaysia, and Batam Island in Indonesia. In their most basic form. growth triangles exploit complementarities between geographically contiguous areas of different countries to gain a competitive edge in export promotion (Thant 1998). Growth triangles differ from trade- liberalization-based regional cooperation in several ways: