ABSTRACT
International trade has played an important role for less developed countries. The author of one of the standard textbooks on development economics summarizes the situation well:
Throughout Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, primary product exports have traditionally accounted for a sizeable proportion of individual gross national products. In some of the smaller countries almost 25 to 40% of the monetary GNP is derived from the overseas sale of agricultural and other primary commodities such as coffee, cotton, cocoa, sugar, palm oil, and copper. In the special circumstances of the oilproducing nations in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere, the sale of unrefined and refined petroleum products to countries throughout the world accounts for over 70% of their national incomes. But, unlike the oil-producing states and a few newly industrializing countries like South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, most developing countries must depend on nonmineral primary product exports for the vast majority of their foreign exchange earnings.1
