Selected issues in trade and trade policy

South-South trade has long been promoted as a means to reduce the dependence of developing countries on markets of developed countries and to enhance diversification of Southern exports beyond primary commodities. Most of the mechanisms that were created to foster co-operation among developing countries were largely subregional and regional arrangements, many of them preferential in nature. During the 1950s and 1960s, the promotion of South-South trade was in many instances part of a set of policy measures anchored in a strategy of import substitution behind high trade barriers. South-South trade grew in spurts as developing country economies went through stop and go cycles. Despite efforts to promote and diversify South-South trade, primary products continued to dominate these flows in most regions, and by 1990 South-South trade accounted for only 6.5 per cent of world trade.