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Unit twenty-eight The Transnational Economic Zone Borders these days have little meaning for Singapore-based regional executives of electronics firms like Sanyo and Philips. More and more of them are commuting every day from their offices in the city-state to factories on the Indonesian island of Batam, 45 minutes away by high-speed ferry. The Singapore managers are denizens of a new, almost borderless regionin their case embracing Singapore and parts of Malaysia and Indonesiathat economists define as a transnational economic zone and layman have come to call a growth triangle. Overlapping three or more countries, the zones are taking advantage of low labor and land costs in one nation and surplus capital and technological sophistication in others to build export-oriented industry and attract foreign investment. Since Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong first mentioned the term in 1989, growth triangles have begun to spread across East Asia. Prosperity is our goal, and that prosperity should be shared , says Tun Daim Zainuddin, a former Malaysian Finance Minister who is charged with overseeing this countrys participation in the schemes. The rush to triangulate is largely driven by two factors: the worldwide recession and the perceived threat of protectionism from emerging trade blocs in Europe and North America. Against that backdrop, Asian economies whose fast growth, competitive edge and export-to-the-West strategies earned them the sobriquets of dragons and tigers are increasingly gearing up toward regional cooperationwithout the kind of formal accord exemplified by the North American free Trade Agreement. Last week an Ambitious tariff-cutting program by the six countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations formally went into effect, but if will take at least 15 years to reach their goal. | 
