The Development of Regionalism in International Trade: Implications for Australian Industry

TL;DRAbstract

Recent federal government policy has targeted productivity improvements within industry. This recognises that much Australian industry, protected in the post war years from outright international competition, has remained lack lustre in it's business approach content to serve the domestic market. As a consequence Australia's export sector has remained narrow with the majority of exports associated with agriculture and mining products in their raw or lightly processed form. These being sectors in which Australia has a comparative advantage by international standards. Australia's economic fortunes have been tied heavily to the well being of the international commodity markets, a market influenced by factor cost and exchange rates and, as a result, volatile. While world merchandise trade has continued to grow throughout the 1980's elaborately transformed manufactures (ETM's) have increased their share of trade at, it has been argued, the expense of commodities. Sustained economic growth c

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