Considerations Regarding Countries Participation to International Trade

In a closed economy, the speed and pattern of economic development is determined by the labour, capital, natural resources and technology available in the domestic economy. This has implications for all five drivers of productivity growth. Competition is limited by the number of firms that are viable. Innovation, enterprise, investment, and the development of skills are limited by the prospective returns which can be earned by selling to the domestic market. In an open economy, these constraints are less binding, and economic growth can proceed more rapidly. International trade allows domestic resources to betransferred away from goods and services which can be produced more efficiently abroad, and into goods and services which can be produced more efficiently at home. The ongoing global financial and economic crisis has the potential to usher in a period of a global recession that may seriously undermine all countries' process of economic growth. In particular, the crisis may put a brake on and also reverse efforts in developing countries and by the international community to assure development gains from trade.