During the last decade there have been major changes in the world trading system, many of which have had a dramatic impact on developing countries. Increases in both private and public forms of intervention in trade have been large and persistent enough to have an effect on total development performance and on individual sectors, even at a world level.

How Developing Countries Trade brings together what is known about each type of intervention to better understand the change in the nature of the trading system facing developing countries. Sheila Page considers how changes in the countries which are the markets for developing countries impact on the domestic economies of developing countries and how they might go on to effect the pace and nature of their development in the long run. She also shows that these interventions have had a profound effect not only on countries' trade strategies, but also on their choice of industry--between industry or raw materials and between a broad or a more concentrated pattern of development.