Once again, this past trend was
thoroughly contradictory to the world economy which was still embarking on the prolonged
recession in the advanced economies (Huges and Singh, 1991; Sigh, 1992). Nevertheless, it
is interesting to note that the principal composition of manufactured exports were textiles and
garments, canned foods and canned fish, gems and jewelry and integrated circuits. Exports of
Thai manufactured products as mentioned before can be classified into two broad categories:
(i) natural resource-based and (ii) labour-intensive manufactured goods (Jansen, 1989;
Santikarn Kaosa-ard, 1992). These manufactured exports became the new rising stars.8