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International trade in 2009 is projected to contract for the first time since 1982. As a result, export diversifi cation has gained new urgency as one way of using exports to recover lost growth momentum. Moreover, diversifi cation is central to reducing income volatility and sustaining high growth rates, which are especially important for countries with large populations living in poverty. In the 1950s, countries became concerned that their dependence on primary products would lead to steady falls in the purchasing power of primary exports and thus slow growth. A major policy objective of developing countries since that time has been to diversify out of primary products into manufactures. A...
Although manufacturing has played an important role in the growth of developing countries, Africa has lagged in this industry. This book argues that activities sharing the characteristics of manufacturing, including tourism and ICT, are beginning to play an important role in Africa, offering new opportunities for growth in coming decades.
The role of trade in promoting international development is becoming increasingly important in our globalised world, and the global trading system has the potential to help the world's poor if trading inequities can be remedied. This publication examines the key trade issues relevant to the ongoing multilateral trade negotiations and the evolution of the world trading system as a means to address barriers to growth in developing countries, focusing on the Doha Round. Issues discussed include: potential gains from trade liberalisation for developed and developing countries; reforming trade in agriculture as a key to the success of the Doha Round; markets for manufacturing and services; trade facilitation, TRIPs and the regulatory agenda; the role of regional trade agreements; and issues of aid for trade, in order to help low-income countries develop the infrastructure needed to participate in the global economy and benefit from new market opportunities.
This volume surveys current views in the debate about the impact of foreign direct investment on Third World development--on growth, employment, exports, technology, and distribution of income. It examines whether the efforts of less developed countries to attract and control multinational corporations have constituted a serious "distortion" of trade that threatens jobs in the home nations. It provides new studies of foreign investment in agriculture and in the least developed states. It looks at the threat of transmitting environmental pollution. And it analyzes the link between international companies and the "umbrella" of World Bank cofinancing as a mechanism to reduce risk. Finally, it attempts to estimate how much of the "gap" in commercial bank lending might plausibly be filled by direct corporate investment over the next decade.
In Zimbabwe, trade has been a driver of economic growth, rising incomes, and progressive empowerment of Zimbabweans through rising standards of living and the promise of better jobs. Since 1980, through good years and bad years, increases in exports have been positively associated with increases in national income. Zimbabwe's location and resource base, together with a low-cost but relatively well educated labor force, have endowed it with a naturally high trade ratio built on a diversified base that facilitates using trade as an engine of growth. While trade volumes have rebounded smartly from the deep recession of 2007-2008, these do not offset other worrisome longer-term trends: • Expor...
In this study, during 2008, the financial crisis lead Iceland’s public debt to soar from under 30 percent of GDP to more than 100 percent of GDP, and while underlying external debt came down sharply, it remains elevated at close to 300 percent of GDP. First, external sustainability is overviewed, and second, growth of Iceland’s economy has been challenged, and finally, fiscal adjustments and its macroeconomic impacts are overviewed. Traditional external debt sustainability analysis (DSA) suggests that Iceland’s external debt is sustainable but is vulnerable to depreciation shock.
When Chinese leaders announced in late 1978 that China would "open to the outside world," they embarked on a strategy for attracting private foreign capital to spur economic development. At the same time, they were concerned about possible negative repercussions of this policy. Margaret Pearson examines government efforts to control the terms of foreign investment between 1979 and 1988 and, more broadly, the abilities of socialist states in general to establish the terms of their own participation in the world economy. Drawing on interviews with Chinese and foreigners involved in joint ventures, Pearson focuses on the years from 1979 through 1988, but she also comments on the fate of the "op...
In Juggernaut, Uri Dadush and William Shaw explore the major trends associated with the rise of developing countries, including increased manufacturing, expansion in world trade, and, ultimately, improved living and working conditions, as well as the broad challenges those trends pose.