UNCTAD today announced the publication of Development and Globalization: Facts and Figures, a statistical reference book that addresses the main themes of UNCTAD XI. The publication´s format is geared towards a wide audience of readers who need key development-related data on the world economy from the 1960s to the present. The book includes easy-to-read tables and charts supported by concise explanations highlighting key trends. The standardized presentation of the 43 topics makes information easy to locate.
The online version is available at globstat.unctad.org.
Development and Globalization: Facts and Figures presents statistics reflecting the impact of globalization on the economies of the developing world: It shows that:
- Developing countries have achieved economic and social progress over the past 40 years. As a group, they have integrated further into the international trading system.
- Developing countries share of world merchandise exports increased from less than one fourth in 1960 to one third in 2002.
- Their exports of services grew on average 9% annually, against 8% for developed countries between 1980 and 2002.
- The share of manufactured goods in their exports has soared from 12% in 1960 to 65% in the early 2000s. - However, the benefits of globalization have expanded unevenly within and across developing regions. The least developed countries (LDCs), in particular still lag behind in their participation in high-value-added production and world markets. Only a few developing countries have succeeded in integrating more fully into important sectors of the global economy. Some salient facts about disparities in economic prosperity are outlined in the publication. For example:
- Among the developing regions, only Asia has increased its share in world merchandise exports over the past four decades, with South and East Asian countries generating the bulk of the region’s export growth. Latin America has lost its market share in all primary commodity groups, while Africa has increased its market share for fuels but experienced severe losses for agricultural and non-fuel mineral commodities. The LDCs have lost their market share for all groups except fuel, and their participation in international commodity trade, which was already low, has become almost insignificant. (see figure 1)
- The structure of international trade in manufactures has changed substantially in the past two decades, with the share of electronics doubling to reach almost one fourth of world trade in manufactures. The main reason for this surge is the increasing participation of developing countries in international production networks, where developing-country exports typically have a strong import content. This is reflected in the fact that developing countries’ trade balance for electronics has remained slightly negative (see figure 2)
- Asia is the most active and successful among developing regions in world trade in services. Its share of world services exports rose from less than 10% in 1980 to 17% in 2002. By contrast, the relative positions of American and African developing countries deteriorated as their exports of services grew more slowly than the world average. Finally, the position of the LDCs in total exports was weaker in 2002 (0.4%) than it had been 20 years earlier (0.8%).
- Today, external development financing increasingly occurs in the form of foreign direct investment. The share of FDI in private capital flows to developing countries and to countries in Central and Eastern Europe rose from 30% in 1980-1985 to 82% in 1998-2002. However, a disparity in the distribution of FDI is noticeable, with private capital inflows being concentrated in a small number of emerging-market economies.
- Some developing countries have come to depend on workers´ remittances as an increasingly important source of external finance. In some cases, this type of financing inflow constitutes the single most important source of foreign exchange income. Consequently, remittances rose steadily in the 1990s, reaching more than $60 billion in 2001.
- There are now about 64,000 transnational corporations (TNCs) engaged in international production, with about 866,000 affiliates located abroad. Developed countries, specifically in the European Union, still host the largest number of TNCs. Developing economies are home to less than one quarter of TNCs, while they host more than half of all foreign affiliates worldwide. Most of these affiliates are in Asia, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean.
Development and Globalization: Facts and Figures covers a variety of subjects that guide the reader towards a more in-depth understanding of topics tackled by other UNCTAD publications. These subjects are population and broad economic trends, external finance, debt and foreign direct investment, transnational corporations and foreign affiliates, international trade in merchandise and services, tariff protection, production and international trade of commodities, production and international trade of manufactures, and information and communication technologies.
