ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the perceptions of the business elite in the late 1990s. The focus is on how leading businessmen saw the private sector’s role in the economy and the state, in terms both of the present reality and the future potential. The objective is to assess the extent to which the private sector was capable of taking the part played by private sectors in developmental states. The necessary elements here, as shown in Chapter 1, are:
• a relationship with the government which is enabling and supportive rather than restrictive and subject to predatory behaviour;
• a corporate structure which is inherently effective and a trading framework which enables it to compete globally; and
• a domestic social, legal and economic environment which facilitates its activities.
