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Trade and Development Problems of the Under-Developed Countries : the Back Ground To the United Nations' Conference

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

A. Maizels ,
L. F. Campbell-Boross  and
P. B. W. Rayment
A. Maizels
Affiliation:
National Institute
L. F. Campbell-Boross
Affiliation:
National Institute
P. B. W. Rayment
Affiliation:
National Institute
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Extract

The United Nations' Conference on Trade and Development now in session in Geneva is concerned essentially with the evolution of new policies for international trade which would assist the under-developed countries to expand substantially their current level of earnings from exports. The purpose of the present article is not to discuss the many alternative proposals which have been put forward at Geneva, but rather to examine the facts behind the slow growth in the export earnings of the underdeveloped countries over the past decade or so.

Type
Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 28 , May 1964 , pp. 24 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © 1964 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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References

(1) In this article the term ‘under-developed’ is used synonymously with’ developing’, the latter being the one now in general use in United Nations' documentation.

(2) It should not be forgotten that a number of countries in Western Europe (such as Portugal, Spain, Greece and Turkey) are as ‘under-developed’ as many countries in, for example, Latin America.

(1) This refers to the ‘net barter’ terms of trade, that is, the ratio of export to import unit values.

(2) This is rather less than the 11 per cent decline in their export prices (table 3) because there was a slight fall in the prices of their imports (which include food as well as other goods).

(3) World Economic Survey, 1962, Part 1 : The Developing Countries in World Trade, United Nations, New York, 1963.

(4) Some of which would be the result of increasing invest ment in these countries in the past.

(1) Industrial Growth and World Trade, by A. Maizels, Cambridge University Press, 1963.

(2) The ‘primary producing’ areas are here defined as all countries outside North America, Western Europe, Japan and the Sino-Soviet group; they therefore include the ‘under- developed’ areas and Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

(1) These percentages relate to the consumption of synthetics plus the major natural materials. If all natural materials had been included in the calculation, the synthetics percentages would be lower in each period, though a similar increase would probably be shown over the decade.

(1) Over this period the value of consumers' expenditure on food, beverages and tobacco at constant prices rose by 17 per cent, compared with the 12 per cent quantum increase for the commodities listed in table 9. The difference appears to be largely due to the increasing proportion of the consumer's dollar which is spent on processing and distributive charges.

(1) A recent study of United States production of military equipment has shown that the volume of materials consumed per million dollars of defence expenditure in that country fell by about one-third from 1955 to 1960 (see Resources in America's Future, by H. H. Landsberg, L. L. Fischman and J. L. Fisher, published for Resources for the Future, Inc. by The John Hopkins Press, 1963).

(1) Experimental production of footwear with synthetic uppers was begun in 1963 in the United States, and in 1964 in Britain.

(1) On the same basis, exports from the developed primary exporters would have risen by 42 per cent (instead of 33 per cent).

(1) The index shown in Table 27 of the Statistical Appendix, adjusted to eliminate exports from the developed primary- exporting countries.

(1) ‘Commodity export earnings and economic growth’, by Gerda Blau, Monthly Bulletin of Agricultural Economics and Statistics, December, 1963, FAO, Rome.

(2) Table 4 gives a list of specialist producers of the main groups of primary products.

(1) The granting of freer access to markets would no doubt create unemployment problems in certain areas of the devel oped countries. In such cases, the relaxation of import restrictions would need to be phased over a period of years, and combined with measures designed to re-direct the resources affected into other activities.

(2) Statement by M. Giscard d'Estaing to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development on 24th March, 1964.