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As a world leader in the textiles and clothing trade, Hong Kong has played an important role in world denim products trade. To obtain a sound understanding of the current status and position of Hong Kong in the world denim trade, the authors carried out a comprehensive statistical survey of the Hong Kong denim industry. This paper reports detailed analyses on the production, sales and trade of denim products in Hong Kong. The analysis on trade covers imports, domestic exports and re‐exports of denim fabric and apparel products.

This study constructs a comprehensive, internationally comparative set of foreign trade data for the period 1857–1875. The dataset is constructed using information at the commodity group-level and contains import and export values for the UK, France, the Zollverein, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria-Hungary, and the United States, itemised by trade partner. The study tackles three basic problems related to the heterogeneity in national statistics of the period: different definitions of aggregates, inadequate ‘official’ pricing, and the ‘proximity bias’, i.e. the misleading practice of crediting imports to bordering countries from where they physically entered, but where they did not originate. After passing successfully a consistency test, the resulting dataset contains harmonised and country of origin-corrected bilateral trade values for 7 central importers, 10 points in time, and 21 commodity groups, along with ad valorem tariff rates for all commodity groups and countries. They offer new detailed insights into the composition and evolution of trade and tariffs in the third quarter of the 19th century. Furthermore, a basic implementation of the gravity equation shows that as a consequence of the proximity bias estimates using uncorrected data are to be taken with care, especially when assessing border effects and the impact of policy variables.

Transshipment points in container transport are a vital part of the functioning and competitiveness of global logistics systems. However, competition between different geographical locations is ongoing and therefore competitive landscape and leading actors are continuously changing. The purpose of this paper is to understand one of world's leading transshipment points, Singapore, and its competitiveness in the future as lower‐cost alternative locations try to challenge its position.

Observations are based and mostly drawn upon qualitative case study interviews among 11 key companies involved in Singapore's transshipment business. Along with this, second‐hand national statistics are used to support the findings.

As Singapore is the largest container sea port in the world, it has several advantages at its disposal to defend its position against the others. These are mainly due to connectivity around the world, and second, the high frequency of these connections. However, even though the customs procedures are generally argued to be smooth and state of the art, in some comments from real life actors, problematic areas and further room for improvement were inferred. Longitudinal statistics from national consensus also show, for example, that the electronics industry transshipment volumes are on the decline, and the main reason could possibly be due to the relocation of manufacturing sites to China or Vietnam, changing in turn the transshipment point in Asia. For future consideration, Singapore should enhance its capabilities in localization of value‐added services or manufacturing while goods are in‐transit, and also invest in technologies enabling higher container fill rates for airline shipments.

In most qualitative research, amount of observations is always limited and this work is not an exception with this regard. However, reliability caveat is tried to be covered with careful selection of interviewed organizations and using second‐hand national statistics to verify the interviewees' inputs.

This research has value for all countries with high‐cost transshipment points, in building their operations to sustain against new lower‐cost entrants. Also, the functioning of global supply chains with respect to cost, lead time and technical capability are better understood through this case study, as all the examples are drawn from real life.

The paper shows how global logistics networks have changed significantly in recent decades, and it is increasingly in line with case study findings after major sea ports such as Dubai and Shanghai have grown into leading position throughout the world.

With limited local demand, the Hong Kong clothing industry is traditionally export‐oriented for developed country markets. Local entrepreneurs, with the impetus of international trading experience, have led the industry to prosper and gain continually number one status in global clothing trade during the 1970s and 1980s. After the number of clothing factories and work‐force peaked in 1984, the industry contracted and demonstrated a slow rate of growth in domestic exports. On the other hand, the re‐exports counterpart has shown significant increases since the 1980s and has allowed Hong Kong to maintain the leading trading status with total clothing exports. This paper reviews the development trend and current scenario of the Hong Kong clothing industry and identifies the future strategy that the industry is likely to pursue.

Additive manufacturing (AM) has the potential to transform the organisation of all the activities carried out by firms. The growing diffusion of these technologies is increasingly challenging multinational enterprises to reinvent their businesses. Accordingly, many scholars argue that AM may reduce countries’ participation in global value chains (GVCs) or, at least, affect GVCs’ geography, length and further developments. However, so far, the lack of available data on the real worldwide diffusion of these technologies has precluded the possibility to study this phenomenon from an empirical standpoint.

This study investigates AM technologies, with a particular focus on their possible impact on GVCs, in the framework of the current debate in international business. In order to examine this relationship and overcome the lack of adoption data, the authors identify a potential proxy of AM diffusion – that is, patenting activity. Coherently, the authors employ this proxy and a country-level measure of GVC participation (i.e., the Share of Re-Exported Inputs on Total Imported Inputs) to empirically investigate the role of AM in influencing countries’ participation to GVCs. This country-level analysis is focussed on three specific industries and the aggregate economy in 58 countries for the period 2000–2014.

The results show that AM decreases a country’s participation in GVCs, both at the country level and, in particular, in the sectors which are more likely to be affected by AM technologies. This evidence suggests that this phenomenon might be induced by a decreasing reliance on intermediates processed abroad, hence an increasing importance of domestic goods, manufactured via AM.