The past couple of decades have witnessed the rapid growth of export processing zones (EPZs) and science parks (SPs) in many member countries as they have been found higly instrumental to export promotion, foreign exchange earnings, employment generation, and technology transfer. EPZs in the Republic of China have been known as a role model for other developing countries to emulate.
Whit the passage of time, however, EPZs located particulary in newly industrializing member countries have come accross difficulties in maintaining their competitiveadvantages due largely to high cost in production factors. In order to cope with such difficulties, many countries has attempted to undertake the structural change of EPZs.