Emerging Global Economic Trends and Issues

The first three post-war decades saw an historically unprecedented rise in OECD living standards, resulting in no small measure from closer integration of Member countries’ economies. Growth in the OECD area has slowed in the last two decades and its revival will depend on further liberalisation of their economies, including through domestic regulatory reform and other structural adjustments. High on the agenda is an increase of the flexibility of OECD markets — to facilitate adjustment to changing word market conditions without jeopardising macro-economic stability -and continued international liberalisation of trade and capital flows — to expand and deepen the integration of world markets. To realise the growth potential associated with the process of globalisation will depend as much on economic policy reforms in the OECD region as on complementary reforms in developing and transition economies outside the OECD area (henceforth referred to as non-member countries). In recent years, a growing number of non-member countries have come to recognise the potential offered by market-oriented reforms — involving stronger links with the global economy — to promote rapid economic development and improved living standards for their people. As their reforms bear fruit in faster growth, their importance as trade and investment partners of the OECD countries will grow steadily in the coming decades.