The distribution of major industries at designated industrial zones is also available to some extent. Available statistics in 1999 are listed in Table 9. The shares of the top five industries in each region are summarized in Table 10. On the whole the top five industries are electronic, fabricated metal, machinery, plastic, and basic metal and they together share 51.45 percent of the total 10,952 factories. Among the top five, electronic, fabricated metal, machinery and plastic industries commonly appear in the North, Central and South regions. However, the North has textile ranked fourth, the Central has transport ranked fifth, and the South has transport equipment ranked third.

     Regional concentration and variation can also be seen. In the North region, textile manufacturing accounts for 55 percent of the total 571 factories, while electronic manufacturing is 50 percent of the total 1,520 factories. It seems that the Central region does not predominate in any branch of manufacturing; however, its machinery manufacturing accounts for 41 percent of the total 1,160 factories, its fabricated metal manufacturing is 37 percent of the total 1,287, and its plastic manufacturing makes up 37 percent of the total 844 factories. In the South region, basic metal manufacturing accounts for 57 percent of the total 824 factories and the transport equipment manufacturing is 42 percent of the total 747 factories. Finally, it is notable that in the East region, nearly half (49.82%) of the 273 factories engage in non-metallic mineral products based on local natural resources, such as marble and granite quarries. In short, concentration and polarization phenomena appear in textile, electronic, and non-metallic manufacturing industries due to development policy, location, and special resources.

Concluding remarks

     I have given tons of facts related to regional variation of Taiwan's industrial development so far and this may be rather boring. What I would like to emphasize is that there is a tendency to keep balance of development among regions in the government's policy. It is hard to say, however, that the picture now we have for regional variation is entirely an outcome of rational planning. Further studies are required to investigate into crucial factors and process of changes leading to this result. Here, it may be appropriate just to mention briefly future prospect of Taiwan's manufacturing industry as seen by the authority in charge of industrial development. It is believed that Taiwan's manufacturing industry has accumulated many experiences in the past 40 years and has potential for further development. In terms of production value and export, more than 20 items of products, such as motherboards, monitors, chip foundries, notebook PCs, polyester filaments, and bicycles,