Download or read book Integration of Developing Countries in Global Supply Chains, Including Through Adding Value to Their Exports written by United Nations. Trade and Development Board and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Executive Summary : Over the last three decades, global supply chains (GSCs) have increasingly gained importance in linking developing countries to international markets. Initially, GSCs operated in only a few selected economic sectors, and were largely confined to developed countries. Developing countries' participation in GSCs was minor, and limited to labour-intensive processes. Since the 1990s, declines in the costs of cross-border transactions - due to trade liberalization, technological progress, and improvements in transport logistics and management, and also to increases in the industrial capacity in developing countries - have allowed GSCs to further segment, and to gradually integrate developing countries into production networks. Today, a substantial share of GSCs' production processes is taking place in developing countries. For developing countries and their enterprises, GSCs offer opportunities, as well as challenges. GSCs, while greatly facilitating access to developed countries' markets, also demand greater efficienty and competence from suppliers. For developing countries, it is therefore important to implement economic policies that, at the same time as increasing the competitiveness of their enterprises, also improve their reliability and efficiency. In the past, the competitiveness of developing countries' enterprises was mainly based on trade policies - often in the form of preferential market access. Trade policies, although still important, are not sufficient anymore. This is due not only to preference erosion and to tariff declines, but also to the GSCs' business model itself. In GSCs, competitiveness (and therefore delocalization choices, too) are determined by a wide range of factos, but especially by the quality of policies influencing the overall business environment. These policies relate to developing transport and infrastructures, forstering competition in logistics and other trade-related services, enforcing the rule of law, improving customs procedures, providing fiscal and other incentives, and also investing in the human capital necessary to rise along the value chain. In this regard, LDCs and other low-income countries are often confronted with substantial disadvantages, as implementing these policies requires substantial resources, which are lacking. Therefore, properly directed development assistance would help. However, without a long-term national strategy aimed at improving the business environment, development assistance would not be sufficient. In the absence of business-supporting national policies, LDCs and low-income countries would continue to participate in GSCs only as providers of low value-added components, resulting in only a limited contribution to their development." -- (Source : Title page and page 2)