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The Guaraní welcomed European missionaries because they saw the missionaries as buffers between them and Spaniards in Asunción who wanted Indians as laborers, they wanted protection from the Portuguese in Brazil, and they were attracted to Christianity by its “stories”. The Jesuits isolated the mission stations, called reductions, erected massive architectural churches and buildings, and, probably most important, armed and trained the Indians in offensive and defensive maneuvers. Financial support of the reductions came principally from the “Jesuit tea” or Yerba Mate, grown on reduction farms and exported throughout Latin America.

A detailed case study of industrial policy support in Ethiopia for two sectors—floriculture and leather processing—that have developed rapidly, with significant overall impact on the economy. Both sectors benefitted from a wide gamut of activist industrial policies. The common elements were first, access to finance on reasonably attractive terms through the Development Bank of Ethiopia; second, close government-business consultations; and third, flexibility in altering forms and degrees of support.

This chapter examines Hong Kong’s participation in the Multi-Fibre Arrangement, a system under the auspices of the GATT originating in the early 1970s. Originally intended to be merely temporary, the arrangement lasted for 30 years and sought to bring existing international trade agreements relating to textiles and garments under a single umbrella and to provide limited scope for liberalisation. The chapter argues that this arrangement created the intriguing paradox, captured in the title of the book, of enabling Hong Kong to emerge as the world’s largest exporter of garments, prospering while upholding its free trade principles through the acceptance of increasing restrictions on it most important industry.

Hong Kong enjoyed its greatest success with the implementation of the restraint agreements described in preceding chapters, and by maximising the opportunities within them. This chapter examines how the restrictions, including quotas on production, were implemented within Hong Kong through the Department of Commerce and Industry and on the advice of the Textiles Advisory Board.

This chapter examines repeated renewals and extensions of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement – a system that was originally intended to be only temporary. The author describes his experiences as Hong Kong’s chief trade negotiator in the late 1970s, and the tactics used in international trade negotiations. Several examples and interesting anecdotes are given.

This chapter examines the efforts of Egyptians to stimulate export of various agricultural and manufactured goods to the Sudan. The period from the late 1920s through the 1953 decision for Sudanese independence is given special attention because this includes both the Depression and the Second World War, when the possibility of success appeared to be much greater. Chapter six argues that Egyptian exports consistently dominated minor markets in the Sudan, and achieved some success in more lucrative fields, such as cotton textiles, only when foreign competition was severely restricted. The general problem confronting Egyptian exports was that two separate economies had been established by two independent administrations, with differing systems of transport, product distribution, business registration, taxation, and tariffs. Egyptian manufactures simply could not compete with foreign products in the Sudanese free market. Furthermore, even when wartime conditions restricted competition, an anti-Egyptian Condominium administration in the Sudan was able to frustrate entrepreneurs’ hopes through measures designed to maintain the status quo and prevent profiteering.

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the pace and pattern of development of China's new industries, as they may bear on the regional production networks in East Asia. Two new industries are selected for the study, and they are the electronics and information technology (IT) industry and the automobile industry respectively. This chapter thereby tries to trace the development of the two Chinese industries, focusing on the role of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and their exports records or export potentials. The relative strengths of the Chinese electronics and IT industry as an exporter are estimated in detail, specifically vis-à-vis that of neighbouring economies. It also looks into how the smaller neighbouring economies cope with the impact from China and exploit the niches offered by the emerging new regional production networks.

Salomon Samen examines the policy practices and institutions that can promote export development and diversification in developing countries. Many of the most tested and successful measures for export expansion and diversification involve considerable government intervention, in the form of export-oriented trade and industrial policy measures, to correct market failures that are pervasive in developing countries. Samen reviews the most successful practices and institutions, especially in East Asia, and develops recommendations for countries seeking to expand or diversify their exports. The least controversial government practices are “permissive” policies that aim to remove an anti-export bias created by other government policies (such as high tariffs). More controversial are “positive” policies, particularly “selective” ones that explicitly aim to shift resources to targeted specific firms, sectors, or activities in an attempt to expand and diversify exports.

China’s advance towards overtaking the US economy has taken place at such speed that it has taken most observers by surprise. At the same time, with contemporary China only just beginning to appear in mainstream Western culture, China remains a closed book to the mass of the population in the West. This combination of rapid change and ignorance creates understandable fears as to what this may mean, which are inflated by a generally hostile and distorted mainstream media narrative about China that is subject to little informed scrutiny. Even more serious discussions about China are distorted by attempts to sustain the myths of the ‘Washington consensus’; meaning it has to be claimed that China’s economic growth must be exaggerated, unsustainable, about to crash or has only come at immense human cost. This chapter considers some of the myths and misinformation that inform popular prejudices about China and tackles some misconceived theories that distort more influential opinions, including in assessing China’s economic achievements and prospects.

This chapter discusses the development of port activity to suit the flow of both passengers and cargo to Fremantle. The port trade reflected the growth of Western Australia’s economy during the early twentieth century. It demonstrates that the favourite location of the port and the good railway connections brought the port to the forefront of trade in the state.

This chapter analyses Mexico’s deteriorating economic relationship with China, tracing its reform trajectory from the adoption of NAFTA in the 1990s, to China’s WTO entrance, and to the ways China’s rise is exacerbating tensions between Mexico and the US today. The author argues that Mexico failed to implement public policies and institutional reforms to bolster companies and position them to perform successfully under NAFTA. Instead, elite policymakers chose to rely on a neoliberal hands-off industrial development strategy, effectively kicking away the ladder of state guidance for industrial promotion, reducing such tools as public credit, tax breaks, trade tariffs, and so on. This led to Mexico’s incorporation into China’s internationalized development strategy as an importer of Chinese goods, which has left it with a massive trade deficit with China over the past twenty-five years.

This chapter studies the varieties of exported goods from MENA countries to gauge the impact of fossil fuel subsidies on industrial diversification. Subsidies may provide a cost advantage to MENA based firms. However, subsidies can also relieve pressure on producers to innovate towards energy efficiency of goods and production processes. As international demand for energy efficient goods increases, the lack of innovation towards this objective may harm their ability to export to European and other high-income markets. The chapter finds that MENA countries with lower subsidies or net-taxes on fossil fuels are able to target their exports specifically to more advanced OECD economies and export more varieties but tend to have fewer export destinations.