Trade Liberalization, Industrialization and Development: Experience of recent decades Mehdi Shafaeddin

The author argues that trade liberalization is necessary for industrialization provided it is part and parcel of a dynamic and flexible trade and industrial policies; undertaken at the right time, gradually and selectively. In contrast, undertaken, pre-maturely, rapidly and uniformly across-the-board, it will lock the country into specializing in production and exports of primary commodities natural resource-based products, and/or labour-intensive stage of assembly operation, eventually resulting in de-industrialisation and unemployment.

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