WTO, Globalization and New Technology: Changing Patterns of Competition and New Challenges for Sustainable Industrial Development

Abstract

Globalization is often described as the process of increasing the integration of the world economy of countries becoming more interdependent and interconnected. As we embark on the twenty-first century, advances in information and communication technologies (ICT) are helping pave the way for greater economic integration through unprecedented rapid flows of goods, services, capital and ideas. Each day, more than US$1.5 trillion is traded in the global currency markets; each year nearly a fifth of the goods and services the world produces re traded internationally. Much has been said about how globalization has helped to realize the benefits of free trade through comparative advantage and division of labour. There is also supporting, although not uncontroversial, evidence of a link between external openness and economic growth via greater access to technology.