This Selected Issues paper on the Republic of Kosovo’s 2013 Article IV Consultation highlights growth and Kosovo’s external environment. In the wake of the global financial crisis, Kosovo’s economic growth slowed but remained positive, while most other Western Balkans...

This paper discusses South Africa’s recent growth performance and its new growth targets. It analyzes the history of exchange rate volatility, compares it with other countries, and examines the relationship between volatility and trade flows in South Africa. It highlights facts on...

This Selected Issues paper for Nicaragua reports that the Central America–Dominican Republic-United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) provides a general framework for country-specific bilateral agreements. In addition to the phased liberalization of trade in goods, CAFTA-DR provides...

Developing countries have low levels of savings and investment. As a result most developing countries have to rely on Foreign Capital Inflows (FCI) to generate sufficient saving in order to achieve high levels of growth. Pakistan is one of those countries that rely heavily on external flows to...

In the backdrop of persistent trade deficit, Bangladesh has been extensively liberalizing its trade regime since 1992 in order to achieve higher export performance and GDP growth. However, despite the liberalization, imports are still growing faster than exports, increasing trade deficit. The...

The ASEAN–India Free Trade Agreement (FTA) has brought opportunities as well as challenges to the Indian industry since it came into force on 1 January 2010. There is no clear-cut estimates about the gains which will come to India especially in the sectors of agriculture, plantation and...

There are two different opinions about India’s import liberalization surfaced in the recent global financial crisis era. Some expressed India to be one of the highest trade restrictive economies and others appreciated India for lowering import tariffs and making trade free. This empirical...

This article examines the link between relative export, import and domestic goods’ prices and relative wages over the years by empirically testing the Stolper–Samuelson theorem for India. It also examines the role of other factors such as manufacturing trade, liberalization phase,...

In the current context of heightened concern for inclusive development, this article explores the link between trade liberalization and inclusive growth by analyzing the channels by which trade liberalization-induced structural change and employment patterns influence growth, inequality and...

Sri Lanka’s economic policy strategies radically moved away from inward-looking import-substituting industrialization to outward-looking export-oriented industrialization (EOI) in 1977. The EOI strategy was implemented through a broad agenda of reforms including trade liberalization,...