The increasing share of developing countries in world GDP

In a previous post I noted the rise in the share of South-South trade. Below is the expansion of developing countries' share in total world GDP (source here).

The expansion reflects to a great extent the rising share of China. At PPP the share of developing countries is now at around 50%.

South-South Trade

The Human Development Report (see here p. 46), which was the topic of a recent post, has a great graph on the huge expansion of South-South trade, when compared to North-South and North-North trade, in the last decade.

As one can see, the share of North-South trade in total world trade has expanded at a relatively slow pace, while the share of South-South trade has exploded. The obvious counterpart is the collapse of North-North trade.

I had a teacher that used to say that if someone asked you a question about globalization, and you didn't know the answer, just say China, and you'll be right a third of the times. So let's say China explains what is going on in South-South trade. [China entered the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001].

South facing unfavourable global conditions

By Ylmaz Akyüz

The high-growth performance of many developing countries in 2003 to 2008 and then their quick recovery from the 2008-9 global financial crisis was largely due to favourable external conditions, including the policies in developed countries. (This was analysed in the previous issue of South Bulletin). However, these conditions do not exist today and in fact the global conditions have turned unfavourable. Hence developing countries are now facing serious vulnerabilities and risks to their economic situation, with each category of countries facing their own specific problems. Developing countries have to consider changing their growth and development strategies, in light of the changing global situation.

Read the rest here.