Other NICs For a long time the terms Third World and developing areas were used to describe the world's poor nations. These terms were used indiscriminately; all emerging nations were lumped into these categories. But by the 1970s it began to be noticed that some "developing countries" precisely the Asian tigers discussed here were developing faster than others, often at impressive, miracle rates. Hence, the term Newly Industrializing Countries, or NICs, was invented to differentiate the impressive success stories in the Third World from those that lagged behind.