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| TDR
2003: Raising Fundamental Concerns |
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As the
major developed economies struggle with sluggish growth
and the prospects for developing countries have been
inevitably affected by such deflationary pressures,
the UNCTAD's latest Trade and Development Report
for 2003 offers some distinct insights into the current
global economic predicament.
The first part of the Report shows how the recovery
of global economic activity after its sharp decline
in 2001 has been much slower and more erratic than expected.
It traces this back to the pattern of global trade and
financial flows in the 1990s, leading up to an increased
dependence on the US economy as the main source of global
growth. This in turn is fundamentally related to the
changes that occurred in the underlying economic policy
regimes, particularly across the developing world. Thus,
in part II, the Report analyses why the market-led economic
policy reforms adopted in many developing countries
subsequent to the debt crisis of the early 1980s have
not improved their growth and industrial performance,
or strengthened their ability to withstand external
shocks. The Report provides explanations that challenge
conventional points of view and raises concerns about
the current direction of global economic policymaking
dogmatically driven by proponents of the neo-liberal
economic paradigm.
The State of the World Economy
TDR 2003 makes revealing assessments of the state of
the global economy and the problems of the prevailing
economic policymaking. It presents the grim prospect
that the imbalances and excesses created during the
high-tech boom of the 1990s could result in a long period
of erratic and sluggish growth, with occasional surges
and dips accompanied by price deflation.
When the high-tech stock market boom in the US ended
in the first half of 2000, there were widespread expectations
of a short and sharp recession. Contrary to such expectations,
the US economy entered a more persistent but less severe
slowdown. Growth in Europe and Japan, on the other hand,
instead of accelerating to offset the slowdown in the
US, actually fell in 2002.
The Report attributes the delay in vigorous recovery
in the US economy primarily to the failure of investment
spending to recover, because of continued excess capacity
remaining from the end-nineties' boom in the information
and telecommunications sectors. Against this failure
of an expected strong recovery in the US, preserving
the growth of global income and international trade
would require a rapid shift in the policies in the rest
of the industrialized world. However, measures to stimulate
domestic demand from the major countries in Europe and
Japan have been short in coming. This has made the global
recovery process more difficult.
A major factor behind the failure of Europe's
recovery has been the increasing difficulty of implementing
a counter-cyclical economic policy within the rigid
monetary and fiscal constraints set for the Euro area.
The increased interdependence of EU activity with that
in the US, arising from the large number of mergers
and acquisitions between European and US firms in the
1990s, has also contributed to the difficulties in stimulating
European recovery. In Japan, on the other hand, despite
the Bank of Japan's policy of zero interest rates,
deflation continued unabated. As a result, the financial
sector continued to reflect weaknesses, and the Japanese
economy too started to contract again in the first quarter
of 2003, pulling back global recovery.
The consequences of the global economic slowdown in
2002 inevitably affected the developing world, even
though there were significant variations both between
and within regions. In general, the latter can be linked
to the differences in the policy choices made by them.
The East Asian region as a whole proved less susceptible
than anticipated to the effects of the weaknesses in
the industrialized world in 2002. However, with a sharp
drop in growth or outright recession in most of the
major economies in the region, output declined in Latin
America in 2002, for the first time since the 1980s.
On the other hand, performance in Africa was largely
independent of the impact of the US downturn in 2001
and more closely linked to demand conditions in Europe.
Thus, the region benefited little from the upswing in
2002, and climatic and political conditions continued
to have a major impact on economic performance. The
transition economies were also less affected by the
global slowdown, inspite of the fact that many of these
economies belonging to the Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth
of Independent States (CIS) have high dependence on
trade with Western Europe.
Capital Accumulation, Economic
Growth and Structural Change- The Debate on Development
Strategies
Given the increased diversity in economic performance
among developing countries in the current global economic
downturn, TDR opens afresh the debate on latecomer industrialisation
and growth strategies facing developing countries. Given
that the most notable success stories in catching-up
industrialisation since the Second World War have been
in East Asia, the discussion inevitably centres on the
growth experiences of the first-tier and second-tier
newly industrialising economies (NIEs) of the region
and looks at the policy lessons they have to offer vis-à-vis
the Latin American economies. As always, the analysis
brought out by TDR makes a departure from the other
main publication from the UNCTAD secretariat, the World
Investment Report.
It is known that during the entire period 1960-1990,
the countries in East Asia had enjoyed rapid, uninterrupted
and stable growth, which was also remarkably stable.
Growth slowed down and instability increased only during
the 1990s and clearly reflected the boom-bust cycles
associated with unstable capital flows. While this culminated
in the 1997-98 crisis, most of these countries have
managed a fairly rapid turnaround subsequently.
By contrast, the growth performance of the Latin American
region, whose growth rates and per capita income levels
were similar to that of the East Asian region between
1960 and 1973, diverged sharply and became increasingly
unstable after that. In fact, subsequent to the adoption
of the economic reforms, most of these countries experienced
slower and less stable growth during 1980-2000 than
in the previous two decades. Further, at present, Latin
American countries have appreciating currencies just
when there is a global economic slowdown in output and
trade, and are faced with a shift to short-term capital
flows once again. Against the backdrop of the instability
of such short-term capital inflows, the recovery in
Latin America in 2003 is thus also likely to be weak
and fragile.
TDR highlights how the neoliberal reforms adopted in
the Latin American economies subsequent to the debt
crisis (collectively referred to as the "Washington
Consensus") were aimed at removing structural
and institutional impediments to growth and imcreasing
allocative efficiency, and thus improve productive capacity
and trade performance. The argument of the proponents
of these reforms has been that the removal of domestic
price distortions and the freeing of market forces would
generate rapid increases in private investment. Specifically,
increasing investment was to be achieved through the
mobilization of domestic savings through deregulation,
liberalization of the financial sector, and attraction
of foreign direct investment (FDI). This was expected
to put an end to the stop-go development cycles associated
with excessive indebtedness and periodic BOP crises,
and usher in an era of sustained growth and poverty
reduction. But, the Latin American growth experience
and their increased vulnerability to BOP crises as seen
in the last two decades, discredit any claims of the
neoliberal growth paradigm in meeting these professed
objectives.
Although the ultimate aim of the macroeconomic and other
measures implemented in the countries that experienced
the debt crisis was to prepare the ground for private
investment-led recoveries, a rapid and sustained recovery
in capital accumulation and growth has proved elusive
for most of the countries undergoing rapid market reforms,
in both Latin America and Africa. In fact, the "investment
pause" that followed the debt crisis of the early
1980s has become a much more permanent feature of the
economic scene of many developing countries.
Industrial progress has also halted in much of the developing
world; only eight of 26 selected countries succeeded
in raising the share of manufacturing value added in
GDP between 1980 and the 1990s. In particular, almost
all Latin American countries saw significant declines
in the share of manufacturing value added in GDP following
the introduction (or intensification) of market-based
economic reforms since the 1970s and 1980s. By contrast,
policy continuity in East Asia after the debt crisis
produced a strong investment performance, and has lead
to an increase in manufacturing value added, employment
and exports.
Given that after so many years of reform and adjustment,
there is little sign of creative forces initiating a
new virtuous process of accumulation, growth and structural
change, the deindustrialisation process associated with
the shift in development paradigm in Latin America and
sub-Saharan Africa surely calls for a serious rethinking
of the development strategies adopted by developing
countries. The TDR thus goes into the reasons of why
leaving enterprise to the invisible hand of global market
forces, as propounded by the prevailing paradigm, has
failed in the rapid reformers.
It argues that capital accumulation holds the central
place in the mutually reinforcing interplay of linkages
among capital accumulation, technological progress and
structural change, which constitute the basis for rapid
and sustained productivity growth and thus make up a
virtuous growth regime. Thus, identification of the
factors that govern investment decisions is the key
to understanding the varying economic performance of
developing countries.
Industrialisation, Trade and Structural
Change
Drawing attention to the contrasts between the Asian
and Latin American investment regimes, the Report points
out how a strong relationship between a rising ratio
of investment to GDP constitutes an integral part of
a virtuous investment dynamic in most East Asian countries.
On the contrary, weak recoveries in Latin America is
observed to have often been associated with stronger
performances in less productive categories such as housing
construction, along with a sharp decline in public investment
in infrastructure. This also gets reflected in the fact
that for most Latin American countries, there has been
no improvement in the level or composition of investment,
even when FDI increased. In Asia, by contrast, recent
surges in FDI inflows have been associated with a rising
share of investment in GDP and increased investment
in machinery and equipment. Thus, varying investment
performance is a major reason for the differences in
the ability of developing countries to establish and
sustain a strong development path.
TDR 2003 then goes on to show how the close correlation
between high investment rates, rising shares of manufacturing
in GDP and strong export performance is underpinned
by a rapid growth in productivity. Foreign trade also
exerts an important influence on the evolution of economic
structure, in so far as it can help to overcome domestic
supply-side and demand-side constraints on industrialisation
and growth. However, as with investment, the extent
to which trade feeds into a more or less dynamic and
virtuous industrialisation process owes a good deal
to policy choices and interventions.
This is because the links between investment on the
one hand, and productivity growth and trade performance
on the other are not automatic. The pace of productivity
growth in developing countries and the speed with which
the productivity gap with developed countries can be
reduced are affected by: the nature of their participation
in international production networks (IPNs); technology
and capital goods imports; and the process of learning
and adaptation fundamental to technological progress.
Thus, targeted technology policies also have a direct
bearing on the outcome.
This is why while many developing countries are becoming
increasingly similar to developed countries in the structure
of their manufactured exports; this does not necessarily
imply a corresponding similarity in their pattern of
manufacturing value added. This disparity between the
growth rates of manufacturing value added and exports
is due to the weak growth in domestic value added and
to strong growth in imports associated with participation
in IPNs. Participation in IPNs is often advocated as
a possible basis for technological leapfrogging and
rapid acceleration of productivity growth. However,
it has been established that the technology transfer
and learning processes in such networks are increasingly
circumscribed by the global strategies of TNCs, rather
than by the national development strategies of the host
countries, as has been argued by the proponents pushing
for domestic economic policy and institutional reforms.
This is what leads to weak backward and forward linkages,
which reduces the scope for expansion in domestic value
added.
Thus, it is rightly emphasised that the pace and pattern
of industrialisation are greatly influenced both by
the pace and pattern of capital accumulation and the
nature of participation of countries in international
trade. The mutually reinforcing dynamic interactions
between capital accumulation and exports are believed
to lead to successful industrialisation in developing
countries.
Analysing the processes of accumulation, industrialisation,
trade and structural change, the Report comes out with
a classification of five broad categories of developing
countries:
1. The first group consists of first-tier NIEs, notably
the Republic of Korea and Taiwan Province of China,
which have already achieved a considerable degree of
industrial maturity through a rapid accumulation of
capital, and growth in industrial employment, productivity,
output, as well as in manufactured exports. In both
economies, the share of industrial output is well above
the levels of advanced industrial countries, but the
pace of expansion of production capacity and output
in the industrial sector has slowed down compared to
the previous decades.
2. The second group consists of countries that are progressing
rapidly in industrialisation. They are increasing the
share of manufacturing sector in total employment, output
and exports as well as upgrading from resource-based
and labour-intensive products to medium- and high-tech
products in both output and trade. These include the
dynamic second-tier NIEs, notably Malaysia and Thailand.
China and to a lesser extent, India could also be considered
in this group, even though they are earlier stages of
industrialisation compared to the former.
3. The third group comprises countries that have rapidly
integrated into IPNs by focusing on simple assembly
operations in labour-intensive manufactures. They have
seen a sharp rise in industrial employment and manufactured
exports, but their performance in terms of investment,
manufacturing value added and productivity growth, as
well as overall economic growth has been poor. Two countries
that stand out in this group are Mexico and the Philippines.
4. The fourth group comprises countries that have reached
a certain level of industrialisation, but have been
unable to sustain a dynamic process of industrial deepening
in the context of rapid growth. These include Brazil
and Argentina, where investment performance has been
poor, industry has been losing its relative importance
in total employment and value added, productivity growth
has been due to labour shedding rather than faster accumulation
and technical progress, industrial upgrading has been
limited, and exports have continued to be dominated
by primary products and low value-added manufactures.
In these countries, although progress has been achieved
in certain industries such as aerospace and automobiles,
it has not gone deep enough to establish a dynamic momentum
in the industries. The African countries, at a much
lower level of industrial development, can also be included
in this group, in terms of sluggish progress in their
industrialisation and structural change.
5. A final category consists of countries that have
achieved sustained and strong growth by intensifying
exploitation of their rich natural resources through
a rapid pace of capital accumulation. However, their
industrial performance has been weak both in terms of
manufacturing value added and exports, and prospects
for further structural change and productivity growth
appear to be limited. The most outstanding example is
Chile.
Such evidence examined in Part II of the Report clearly
shows that the neoliberal reforms have failed in exactly
the same areas in which previous policies of import
substitution had also failed. Unlike the advanced industrial
economies and the East Asian NIEs, the deindustrialisation
trend in many developing countries in Latin America
and sub-Saharan Africa has not been a benign product
of differential productivity growth and structural change
in the context of steady economic expansion. Rather,
it has coincided with a widespread slowdown in growth.
Thus, it is clear that the support and protection given
during the import-substituting industrialisation of
the 1960s and 1970s had undoubtedly allowed industry
in Latin America and to a lesser extent in Africa, to
expand considerably faster than would have been possible
under competitive conditions. Unlike in East Asia, however,
which also made extensive use of industrial policies,
these strategies in Latin America and Africa were not
always able to promote viable industries. Consequently,
with big-bang liberalisation and the withdrawal of support
and protection, confronted with stiff competition, industries
in these regions were forced to downsize, rationalise
or perish.
However, with the failure of the first generation of
reforms to deliver on its promises, as TDR discusses,
attention has turned to "getting the investment
climate right". This would be achieved by combining
macroeconomic stability with better business organization,
improved 'governance', and measures to boost
competition for ensuring the 'quality' of
investment.
This reintroduction of investment into the mainstream
does not however imply a fundamental departure from
the earlier focus on market-driven efficiency. Rather,
strong emphasis has been placed on the role of competition
in promoting investment and economic growth, and this
is to be attained not only through further deregulation
of domestic market, but through even greater openness
to international trade and investment. But, TDR is unequivocal
in its assertion that no unconditional link has been
established between greater openness and economic growth,
either theoretically or empirically.
Overall, the TDR is unambiguous in its preference for
the strategy followed by East Asian countries whose
integration occurred from a position of strength and
was characterised by a continuous and purposeful strategy
of gradual opening up. A wide range of macroeconomic,
financial and trade policies were used in East Asia
to stimulate investment, target industrial upgrading
and encourage exporting. By contrast, the shift in development
strategies that occurred in Latin America and Africa
occurred in a period of weakness in the aftermath of
the debt crisis. The big-bang liberalization they had
to adopt has led to inconsistencies among macroeconomic,
trade, FDI and financial policies, which have skewed
structural changes and stunted technological progress.
Thus, East Asia's better performance is attributed
to the better flexibility and resilience of their productive
structures, institutions and government policies to
respond to external shocks with effectiveness and vigour
than by Latin American countries. This has enabled most
of the East Asian economies, when exposed to external
shocks, to adjust and continue, after a brief pause,
on their high growth paths. The importance of developing
a broad domestic industrial base to respond to development
challenges derives from its potential for strong productivity
and income growth.
In fact, in 2002, the East Asian region as a whole proved
less susceptible than anticipated to the effects of
the weaknesses in the industrialized world. The Report
attributes this to their low dependence on short-term
capital inflows, which has allowed them greater leeway
for counter-cyclical economic policy. However, this
explanation seems problematic, as the reduced short-term
capital inflows to the region has largely not been the
outcome of deliberate policy decisions by the governments
concerned in terms of reducing their reliance on external
capital. Rather, East Asia's recent lesser reliance
on short-term capital flows has been a reflection of
the fact that foreign portfolio investors have not returned
en masse to the region in the aftermath of the crisis.
For some of these countries, reduced net capital inflows
has also been due to the repayments on the multilateral
loans taken by these countries subsequent to the financial
crisis.
Growth in private consumption expenditure has been seen
to be a more important factor in explaining the region's
recent growth. What is not highlighted is the fact that
the expansion in domestic demand, even in the countries
that took IMF loans in the aftermath of the crisis,
was brought about with non-orthodox expansionary policies,
instead of following the IMF's restrictive policy
prescriptions. This recovery of domestic demand growth
also enabled expansion of the capacities bought over
by foreign direct investors through M&As, in both
productive and financial sectors of the crisis-ridden
economies. This together with the expansion of intraregional
trade, especially with a surge in China's imports
from the region appear to be behind the recovery process,
in spite of the slow down in the US, which is the most
important market for the region. However, the vulnerability
of the continued heavy dependence of these economies
on externally-driven growth is reflected in the fact
that in 2003, East Asian output growth is expected to
be weaker than in 2002 (though faster than in Latin
America), with the SARS outbreak having an impact on
earnings from trade and services.
In general, the findings on varying success in industrial
catching-up paths followed by the different developing
countries have lead the TDR to seriously question the
strategies adopted by a range of developing countries,
which attempt to activate a dynamic process of capital
accumulation and growth through a combination of increased
FDI and reduced public investment and policy intervention.
The Report underscores the crucial role played by domestic
entrepreneurs in the process of capital accumulation
in a late industrialising developing country. This is
based on the evidence that after the initial stages
of industrialisation, capital accumulation is financed
primarily by profits in the form of corporate retention,
rather than household savings. While the role played
a domestic entrepreneur base is clearly crucial to a
sustainable industrialisation strategy, the explanation
in the Report citing the linkage between domestic capital
formation and corporate profits fails to consider the
capital accumulation process in many large emerging
market economies, where household savings continue to
play a prominent role.
Whatever the source of capital accumulation, what is
important to note is that in the countries that were
able to generate sizeable resources for investment,
market forces alone were not left to dictate either
its pace or direction. TDR disputes the claims for the
virtues of unlimited competition in relation to economic
development. The East Asian NIEs did not have the maximum
competition in product, capital or labour markets (which
the neoliberal paradigm propounds as basic to achieving
efficient growth), rather, they strived to achieve an
optimal degree of cooperation and competition. The defining
features of successful development strategies followed
particularly by the first-tier NIEs were the following:
a low-interest-rate policy; using trade, financial and
industrial policies to coordinate investment decisions
to prevent "investment races"; and long-term
ties between banks and large corporations.
It is known how many of these same institutional features
which were recognised to have contributed to the "Asian
Miracle" came under misguided criticism as the
factors responsible for the financial crisis during
1997-98. On the contrary, studies have clearly shown
that a major reason for the deterioration in the performance
of such institutional arrangements in East Asia, which
had served them well until the phase of full-fledged
financial liberalization, was precisely the dismantling
of the checks and balances that had been part of the
earlier system under the onslaught of rapid integration
into the world economy. In particular, this occurred
in two crucial areas: control over external borrowing;
and state guidance of private investment. TDR 2003 is
therefore justifiably doubtful that a "second
generation" of neoliberal reforms will start to
put things back on track.
The Way Forward
In making these gloomy assessments about the prospects
for a strong economic recovery, the Report takes into
account the prospects for acceleration in financial
flows and trade to developing countries, as well as
the potential for international currency realignments.
The Report emphasises that sustainable expansion of
trade and capital flows now depends on a rapid recovery
of the world economy, rather than the other way around
as the proponents of further trade and financial liberalisation
argue.
It is observed that while economic recovery in the developed
countries has failed to pick up strongly, growth in
international trade, which had decelerated subsequent
to the IT bubble burst and the global economic slowdown
since 2000, registered only a modest recovery in 2002.
While factors such as greater trade liberalisation,
deeper vertical integration (through increased spread
of international production networks) and increased
capital inflows can once again enable international
trade to expand faster than global production and income,
all these factors are currently operating under strict
limits due to sluggish growth and rising unemployment
globally.
Net private capital flows to developing countries also
rebound in 2002, reversing the steady decline since
1996. However, given that the surge in financial flows
in the 1990s was also largely due to one-off policy
changes related to the deregulation of national financial
markets and liberalisation of international financial
flows, the Report cautions against excessive optimism
for an increase in capital flows to the levels seen
in the nineties. Further, with the evidence showing
that most greenfield FDI is also attracted by growth
and not vice versa, it is anticipated that the partial
recovery in flows seen last year is unlikely to herald
a stronger upturn in inflows.
According to the TDR, the exchange rate adjustments
that are now occurring are also unlikely to reduce global
trade imbalances and therefore, unlikely to support
global recovery. This is because, since a large proportion
of the US trade deficit is with the East Asian countries,
a correction of these imbalances would require the dollar
to depreciate against the East Asian currencies, including
the yen. But, there are varying pressures acting upon
the latter nations, which may make this difficult to
materialize. These include Japan's reliance on
export growth as the only source of demand expansion
and the intense export competition among the East Asian
developing countries.
In the absence of effective currency alignments and
rapid growth in Europe and Japan, the external adjustment
required to break this global deadlock, this then calls
for a faster price deflation in the US than in the former
economies. Thus, the Report argues that global growth
will continue to depend heavily on the performance of
the US economy and its policy choices. But, based on
the US economy's performance during the past three
years, decisive action would be needed in order to avert
the danger of a prolonged deflation in the US. While
the US monetary authorities have shown readiness to
fight deflation by injecting money into the economy
in order to induce price rises, much of the task, according
to the TDR, will fall on fiscal policy. This calls for
a reorientation of US public spending in order to increase
investments in areas such as public infrastructure,
health and environment.
However, given that there is a global deflationary situation,
the Report calls for bold Keynesian type of globally
coordinated expansionary action, so as to stabilize
the international monetary and financial system. Only
coordinated monetary policies can help in bringing about
stability to capital flows, and an orderly realignment
of exchange rates. However, clearly, given that there
is now a real danger of the emergence of a "liquidity
trap" in economies that are considered to be engines
of growth, monetary policy might become ineffective
in checking and reversing the falls in output and employment,
unless it is combined with coordinated fiscal expansion
to expand liquidity and effective demand, both at the
national and global levels.
In the case of developing countries too, TDR makes bold
suggestions as to how to escape from the vicious circle
of low and unstable growth, high interest rates and
rising indebtedness. For example, the Report emphasizes
less dependence on foreign capital and greater efforts
to build stronger investment-export linkages to ease
the BOP constraint. It also suggests that ways must
be found to improve the contribution of FDI to these
goals. Further, it calls for more strategic policies
to support higher investment and upgrading, and active
policies in the areas of industrial support, technological
progress and public infrastructure.
But, it is by now well acknowledged that several agreements
under the WTO combined together taken in letter and
spirit, as well as the several conditionalities attached
to various debt relief and financial assistance programmes
from international financial institutions (IFIs) and
donor countries mean that developing countries have
very little policy space in effect. But, very often,
official publications from international organisations
fail to discuss the actual policy flexibility which
remains for various countries, for pursuing the kind
of interventionist development policies which they advocate.
The TDR has also been disappointing in this regard.
The Report makes a passing mention of the failure of
Cancun and of the WTO to deliver on its development
promises, the lack of progress of international financial
reform and in developing countries' participation in
decision-making in the Bretton Woods institutions and
the WTO. But, it totally ignores a discussion of how
the policies suggested by them can be practised. The
Report fails to acknowledge just how difficult it is
for late industrialisers today to adopt some of the
most important policy tools that were so crucial to
the industrial development strategies of earlier generation
industrializers in achieving the above goals.
Several prominent works from the UN organisations themselves
have lucidly established the glaring problems faced
by developing countries in the context of WTO agreements
and implementation. There is a need to incorporate the
essence of these works into official publications, for
the maximisation of the existing provisions in the WTO
for policy flexibility for developing countries, and
to call for reformulations wherever necessary, in order
to make the global system more fair, and thus, more
sustainable for both developing and the developed countries.
Probably, the next natural step for TDR should be to
plunge deeper into the implications of the trade agreements
that have been carried out at various levels by developing
countries. There is also a critical need for incorporating
indepth analysis of service sector industries as well
into analyses of capital accumulation and structural
change.
Further, the focus of TDR 2003 appears to be on export-led
growth as the single most important development strategy
choice facing developing countries. Given the fact that
this has only led to increased dependence of their economies
on external demand and external capital and consequent
cycles of boom and bust (as the Report itself shows
so decisively), it would have added further value if
the Report had explored beyond the framework of export-led
growth to the need for varying development strategies
based on the relevance of the domestic economy in the
context of the distinctions between small and large
economies, and the need for domestically-pegged growth
even in the context of export-oriented growth strategies.
Overall, TDR 2003 has definitely added weight to the
growing volume of dissenting analyses on market-driven
globalisation. Unfortunately, the tragedy of the times
is that such incisive assessments and analyses brought
forth by the UNCTAD, however, fails to instigate similar
soul-searching by developed country policy makers, IFIs,
and other multilateral organisations such as the WTO.
Even in the face of mounting evidence suggesting severe
lacunae in their prescriptions, the latter continue
to seek refuge behind ideological fixations and a plethora
of yet more development-friendly phrases and policy
papers.
December 23, 2003. |
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