ABSTRACT
While the international debt crisis and the poor economic performance of most developing countries revealed the failure of import substitution industrialization, the rapidly growing newly industrializing countries (NICs) of East Asia confirmed the early evidence pointed out by Little et al. (1970) about international trade as an engine of growth. 3 This difference in performance played an important role in reshaping development strategies. From the 1980s onwards, international organizations began to recommend export-oriented policies based on market-oriented reforms, reduction of trade barriers and the opening of domestic markets to foreign competition. These requirements embarked most countries in a generalized trade liberalization and strengthened integration into the world economy. As a result, the overall growth in developing countries since 1998 has been driven by export earnings. From 29 percent in 1996, their share in world trade increased to 37 percent in 2006 (UNCTAD 2007).
