Introduction: Challenges Confronting a Rising South Asia—Industry and Employment

The volume takes a comprehensive view in order to promote manufacturing sector and job creation in South Asia taking into account stage of development, macro-policy regime, comparative advantages and competitiveness, industrial policies, trade and investment, labour market issues, and structural constraints. The volume has two parts. Part A explores country cases in detail for select countries in South Asia, primarily focusing on opportunities and challenges of job creation in the manufacturing sector. The countries covered for this purpose are Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The core issues include the contours of the manufacturing sector in the wider context of the national economy with focus on employment creation over the past three decades or so; analysis of what constrained growth of the manufacturing sector in the past, and how they are associated with employment creation. The relative importance of the external sector has been looked into in detail from the point of view of manufactured exports as well as integration with Global Value Chains. Part B presents key chapters on patterns of structural transformation, skill development, innovation system and competitiveness that may lead to deeper understanding of strategies on industrialisation and employment creation in the context of South Asia.