TRADE LIBERALIZATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES Essay

TRADE LIBERALIZATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES - Essay Example As part of its conclusion, the paper also provided some recommendations in relation to the overall improvement of some problems identified in the conduct of the research. Introduction The African continent has been divided into three regions to be able to account for the differences in the level of development. The disaggregation is a manifestation of the level of development – North Africa, the South African Customs Union and the ‘Rest of Africa’. The South African Custom Union is composed of South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia and Botswana. Both North and South Africa are middle-income countries while most countries in the category of Rest of Africa are low-income countries1. North Africa is consists of seven countries namely: Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia and Western Sahara. As of today, the region has an estimated population of more than 208 million2. Among the African countries, North Africa has the biggest non-black population that com prise the more than half of the population at 160 million3. Largely, North Africa is an Arab region with the most number of Arab populations in the world. This can be traced from the historical, cultural and religious influence of the Middle East. North African countries have diverse cultural and historical backgrounds that affect the variance of their political, economic and cultural policies. Apart from being collectively referred to as part of the same region, sharing of a common adherence Islamic cultural identity, and colonial history, it is now difficult to find commonality among the countries of North Africa4. As the African continent is known for its enormous wealth of natural resources, with one of the world’s largest countries with vast deposits of diamonds, gold chrome, uranium, copper, iron, cobalt and many other minerals, the same is true with the North African region. It is endowed with richness of natural resources especially in terms of agriculture and mineral s. Libya and Algeria are also known to have large amounts of petroleum5. North Africa is a region that can rouse development internally with all of its’ natural and human resources. The full use and maximization of its natural resources alone can help this region into full economic development. The North African region is not a rookie when it comes to globalization. It basically relies on oil, natural gas, phosphates and agricultural products for exports. Tradable industrial output, non traded goods and services play a not-so significant role in North African’s economy in terms of manufacturing and most of the existing firms and entrepreneur are mainly family-owned and out of date if compared to other emerging markets in the global industry6. The North African region had also been a region of dispute. Just recently, three of its countries have suffered from political chaos, namely Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. The growing discontent of the people has greatly affected the r uling power in these countries and the government’s retaliation has further destabilized their respective governments. Protests come in different forms, yet, the peoples’ clamour is the same: protests against political suppression and significant economic reforms. It has been apparent from the series of