Other multinationals have come here to capitalise on the cheap labour and rental costs, setting up offices.
China's export model, then, still consists in big measure of renting out cheap labour and land to foreigners.
Gulf employers have got accustomed to using cheap labour and they are ready to fight tooth and nail to keep it.
ECONOMIST: Gulf citizen, no qualifications, seeks well-paid job
As long as there is an unmet demand for cheap labour and prostitutes, traffickers will have every incentive to prey on victims.
ECONOMIST: In the country as slaves, without money or papers
Cheap land, cheap labour and rich natural resources have attracted big inflows of foreign investment, especially from Asian neighbours like China, Vietnam and Thailand.
This comes after numerous complaints that some agencies and businesses have been offering low grade apprenticeships that only last for a few weeks or even months, in exchange for cheap labour and government funding.
The premium is smaller in India and Pakistan, two other big growers with lots of cheap labour, and greater in America.
ECONOMIST: Ethically minded shoppers turn their focus to cotton
That phase will in many ways make different demands on the region's governments than the previous one, in which it was necessary only to offer a cheap and willing source of labour and natural resources.
Although skilled labour is undoubtedly a boon, and cheap and willing labour helps productivity, alternatives could be better yet.
In seasonal work and construction, cheap foreign labour can depress wages and make it harder for the low-skilled to find work, but the flexibility and willingness of new workers can also boost productivity and encourage innovation.
But in the short term it fears an influx of cheap labour from Poland and Hungary.
As a result, just when some of the other ingredients of China's boom, such as cheap land and labour, are becoming scarcer, the government is wasting capital on a vast scale.
The ADB has warned before of the dangers of growth fuelled by natural bounty and cheap labour.
But Britain had coal, which replaced firewood as a fuel, and colonies with slaves providing plenty of farmland and cheap labour.
Labour remains cheap, and the Mekong River running through Cambodia allows the country to benefit from schemes to develop the entire river basin.
Foreign manufacturers have piled into the country in the hope of tapping its potentially huge consumer market, as well as its mix of cheap skilled and unskilled labour.
The supply of cheap agricultural labour dries up and a rising number of workers take jobs in the service sector, where productivity improvements are more difficult to achieve.
Yet capital in India has tended to be in short supply and expensive, whereas labour has remained plentiful and cheap because so many people need work to escape from rural redundancy.
Many Chinese businesses have been built on using cheap labour to produce cheap, commoditised goods such as clothes and shoes for export.
The Lewis Point is the great test for catch-up economies, when they can no longer rely on cheap labour, copied technology, and export-led growth to keep the game going.
FORBES: Does China's Shrinking Workforce Doom It To Economic Stagnation? Some Lessons From Germany
When production jobs moved en masse to China and other cheap labour destinations, rich-world governments did not worry unduly because they thought that their workers could glide painlessly from manufacturing jobs to service jobs.
The Council of Economic Advisers has long argued that immigrants constitute a steady source of willing, hard-working and cheap labour.
Illegal labour has always been cheap, and can easily be disciplined with threats to report rebellious spirits to the police.
Some of the reasons for Asia's dominance are obvious: cheap labour feeds into low prices, and huge local markets allow economies of scale.
And the computer revolution means that it can use its abundant natural advantages notably its spectacular scenery and cheap but educated labour force to attract companies from all around the country.
So the work that is and has to be cheap labour intensive will go there.
FORBES: Manufacturing as Mass Employment Just Isn't Coming Back
In recent years, however, demand for cheap labour in countries such as Libya, Iraq and Saudi Arabia and even in Cairo has slumped.
But the firm wants to hire a quarter of its 80-strong workforce in Gubin, which has a tradition of shoemaking and plenty of cheap, skilled labour.
Portugal suffered a shock when ex-communist countries joined the EU and lured multinational firms that liked cheap labour.
应用推荐