タイ北部における農村縫製業と手織物業をめぐる市場形成

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to identify the socioeconomic factors that facilitated the market competitiveness of two rural household industries, the hand-weaving and garment industries, in northern Thailand. From the mid-1980 the region witnessed the dynamic growth of these industries in concurrence with the emergence of large-scale factories. In this situation, rural entrepreneurs created appropriate new strategies for placing their products on the urban and even overseas markets rather than staying within the existing social structure. We conclude that : 1) rural household industries had a comparative advantage in labor management over their modern counterparts, but at the same time they faced marketing difficulties; and 2) the relational contracting system-in the form of either the putting-out or the advance-order systems-was a device that allowed rural household industries to overcome marketing difficulties. At the same time, it was also device for their largescale counterparts to overcome difficulties in labor management. Due to an increase in real wages and the currency crisis of 1997, many modern garment enterprises have recently closed down. The rural garment industry is on the verge of annihilation, whereas the rural weaving industry has survived.