The HDI is a social well fare index measuring the adult literacy rate (education, life expectancy, and income per habitant).

This HDI was established 1990 by the United Nations development program which attempts to measure the extent to which a country is developed.

With the HDI, each country is given a score which vary from 0-1 based on its life expectancy, education and income per head.

According HDI countries with score of 0.9 are considered to be corresponding to the most economically developed countries, while those with less than 0.5 are corresponding to less economically developed countries.

1. Newly industrialized countries (NICs)

The NICs is a term applied to the formally developing country that over last 3, 4 decades has sustained a high rate of economic growth. They have a competitive edge with the developing countries.

There are three main groups of NICs

1. Asia: Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, India and Thailand. Because of their rapid economic growth, they are referred to as tiger economy.
2. Latin America: Brazil and Mexico
3. Europe: Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Yugoslavia

Strategies for development used by the newly industrialized countries

• Provision of cheap loans and government subsidizes to new investors
• Tax holidays for foreign investors
• Maintain a stable banking system
• Restriction to import to protect new industries from competition
• Creation of free trade zones where no taxes are paid
• Priority on technical based education and training to attract overseas investors