Efforts to liberalize world trade are increasingly focusing on strengthening the links between low-income countries’ trade policies and their development strategies. However, although greater trade openness promises faster growth for poor countries, it also presents risks to those with small...

This Selected Issues paper on Sri Lanka underlies the dynamics of growth and external competitiveness. The slowdown in the contribution of sectors that are labor intensive, together with faster growth in sectors that are capital intensive and have higher productivity levels, resulted in total...

This Selected Issues paper on Sri Lanka provides background information on economic developments and on selected policy issues facing Sri Lanka. The main economic developments in 1996 and the first quarter of 1997 are discussed. The paper highlights that in 1996, a severe drought, power...

This Selected Issues paper on Sri Lanka provides background information on economic developments during 1995 and the first half of 1996 and on key policy issues in the current setting. The paper notes that the economic situation has deteriorated on a number of fronts—inflation has risen;...

This paper attempts to assess the impact of the oil shock on South Asian economies, including Sri Lanka, as well as policy responses to deal with the shock, and the real income loss for low-income households if fuel subsidies were fully removed. The most important impact has been on the balance...

Aid for trade can support countries trying to further benefit from the expanding global market place by helping to address poorly performing infrastructure and institutions. Needless to say, good policies also matter: trade liberalization, improving incentives for private investment in trade,...

The emergence of BRICs-Brazil, Russia, India, and China-is reshaping low-income countries' (LICs) international economic relations. While industrial countries remain LICs' dominant development partners, LIC-BRIC ties have increased so rapidly over the past decade that BRICs have become new...

Diversification and structural transformation play important roles in influencing the macroeconomic performance of low-income countries (LICs). Increases in income per capita at early stages of development are typically accompanied by a transformation in a country's production and export...