Historical Context
The term began to be used circa 1970 when the Four Asian Tigers of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan rose to global prominence as NICs in the 1970s and 1980s, with exceptionally fast industrial growth since the 1960s; all four economies have since graduated into advanced economies and high-income economies. There is a clear distinction between these countries and the nations now considered to be NICs. In particular, the combination of an open political process, high GNI per capita, and a thriving, export-oriented economic policy has shown that these countries have now not only reached but surpassed the ranks of many developed countries.
All four economies are classified as High-income economies by the World Bank and Advanced economies by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). All of them, like Western European countries, possess Human Development Index considered to be "very high" by the UN.
Read more about this topic: Newly Industrialized Country
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