While the industrial countries’ real share in world exports has gone down from 70% to 60%, that of developing countries has gained ground. The fast-growing economies in East Asia, in particular, have been extremely successful in integrating into the world economy. Their market share of world exports went up from 6% in the 1970s to about onefifth in 2003.
One could either choose to talk about a crisis-related topic, which would mostly be unpleasant, or one could choose to talk about something completely different and run the risk of appearing slightly out of touch with reality. As a compromise, I have decided to talk about one of the more positive outcomes of the crisis – assuming that “positive” is not a misnomer.