Looking to the Pacific Rim: Production Subcontracting and Small-scale Industry in South Africa

CHRISTIAN M. ROGERSON IS PROFESSOR of human geography at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, and co-edited a book on the informal economy in South Africa. In this paper the focus is the question of sub- contracting between large and small-scale industry in South Africa and in particular the manner in which many policy observers are now looking to Japan and the Pacific Rim for an appropriate model in evolving such linkages. The development of sub-contracting between large and small enterprises in South Africa is a key issue on the agenda of post-apartheid economic reconstruction.