The rise of the south : essays in south-south trade and finance

Abstract

South-South trade, a generic term used to capture South-South trade in goods services as well as capital and labor flows, emerged as a topic of interest within the global South since early in the 20th century and took on particular importance since the waves of decolonization that swept through Asia and Africa in the post-World War II period. Though interest in South-South trade has ebbed and flowed, it has re-emerged in full force in the last twenty years as a result of several separate yet interrelated processes: the first has to do with the rise of South-South preferential trading agreements (PTAs) that has accompanied the general rise of PTAs, both North-South and South-South as part of the ‘new regionalism’.