Cluster policy in developing countries

After it has been discovered as a vehicle of economic policy in industrialized countries at the beginning of the 1990s, cluster policy has attracted the attention of development policy. Indeed, the case for using cluster policies to promote economic development is in principle not confined to the context of industrialized countries. As cluster policies necessarily have to be specifically tailored to each individual case, it should come as no surprise that their use in developing countries will always differ from their use in industrialized ones. Surely, individual cluster policies in developing contries, too, will differ from each other. Still, some general approaches that respond to typical framework conditions in developing countries can be discerned. This article elaborates some of them and suggests ways to promote clusters on the regional and local levels in developing countries.