Summary

Abstract

Autarky is not a viable option especially for small developing economies; hence, exposure and involvement with globalization is unavoidable and therefore the issue for ever country is how to mediate the encounter with globalization in a manner that can benefit their economic growth and promote their economic development. Globalization poses both challenges and opportunities for all countries, large and small, developed and developing. To seize the opportunities in the global economy, countries have to be proactive and strategic in their international economic policy and pursue domestic economic policy, which continuously improves their international competitiveness of the goods and services they produce for export and national consumption. Specifically countries can use international trade agreements at the multilateral level through the WTO or at the regional or bilateral level to influence the terms of their integration into the global economy and the opportunities that are available to them. The degree to which countries are successful in concluding the type of trade agreements that can accomplish these goals depends on a raft of economic, political, and institutional factors.