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Susan Lund, James Manyika, and Michael Spence

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di–culties. Such countries now play important roles in the complex

value chains that produce vehicles, machinery, electronics, chemicals,

and transportation equipment. They both supply and compete with

the companies based in countries with advanced economies that have

traditionally dominated those industries.

A number o” middle-income countries enjoy a Ãxed advantage: geo-

graphic proximity to major consumer markets in advanced economies.

As automation makes labor costs less important, many multinational

companies are choosing to build new

factories not in countries with the low-

est wages but in countries that are closer

to their main consumer markets and

that still oer lower wages than rich

countries. Mexico Ãts the bill for the

United States; Morocco, Turkey, and eastern European countries do the

same for western European countries, as do Malaysia and Thailand for

richer Asian countries, such as Japan and the wealthier parts o” China.

Other middle-income countries are poised to beneÃt from the shift

from goods to services. Costa Rica, for example, is now a major exporter

oÊ business services, such as data entry, analytics, and information tech-

nology support. Its exports in those sectors have grown at an average

annual rate o” 34 percent over the last ten years, and they are worth $4.5

billion today, or 7.6 percent o” Costa Rica’s ³²¡. The global annual trade

in outsourced business services—everything from accounting to cus-

tomer support—totals $270 billion and growing. That represents a lu-

crative opportunity for middle-income countries such as Costa Rica. Yet

since ¬Ÿ tools could handle much o” the work involved in these services,

workers will need to be able to assist customers with more complex

troubleshooting or sales i” they are to stay ahead o” the machines.

Middle-income countries also have huge opportunities to beneÃt

from new technologies—not only by adopting them but also by build-

ing them. China, for instance, is a world leader in mobile payments.

Apps such as WeChat Pay and Alipay have allowed Chinese consum-

ers to move straight from using cash for transactions to making smart-

phone payments, skipping credit cards altogether. China’s third-party

payment platforms handled some $15.4 trillion worth o” mobile pay-

ments in 2017—more than 40 times the amount processed in the

United States, according to the consulting Ãrm iResearch. In addition

to making transactions cheaper and more e–cient, payment apps also

Emerging economies have

become the world’s

major engines of demand.