What are the Driving Forces of Globalisation?

Over the years, the relative success of globalisation is evident in terms of increased foreign trade and capital flows, acceleration of growth rates and rising real per capital GDP in the those countries that have opened up their economies more to the rest of the world than those that have preferred to follow a close economy model.

It is a known fact that countries such as China, Korea, Mexico, Malaysia and Thailand have experienced faster growth in per capital real increase owing to their expanding external sector and liberalised approach towards globalisation than slowly global sing developing countries such as Ghana, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka among several others.

Globalisation is not a novel phenomenon. Yet, in the contemporary era, its approach tends to be fresh, new, mote friendly and warming. Globalisation essentially implies much closer integration of the world economy that has assured many hopes as well as fears. The policy makers of a developing economy have to take an account of both credit and debit side of the phenomenon.

Driving forces of globalisation are:

1. Technology:

Faster and cheaper technology in the digital global economy of the Internet era has broken the national barrier of time and space, thus, integration of national markets have been facilitated with ease.

2. Liberalisation:

Strong wave of liberalisation induced by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as well as unilateral negotiations and decisions undertaken by the countries world over.

3. Trade Flows:

Removal of trade barriers time and again has facilitated a rising growth rate of the world trade over the years. New technology under IT revolution has created distribution channel, which is difficult to be blocked under the protectionist trade policy. For example, French government’s restriction on American films tends to be futile when these are shown through satellite or Internet (Economist, 1999).

4. Capital Flows:

In the Internet Age, capital has become internationally more mobile.

5. Factor Mobility:

Mobility of individuals, information and knowledge, as agents of production and countries has smoothened the growth process of globalisation.

Several complex and sensitive issues are inherent in the process and proliferation of globalisation including the role of culture and political/social acceptance and alternation of the required attitudes towards the change and involvement of the people at large in the global arena.

Patel (1998), identified the major ingredients of sustainable growth under globalisation process of a developing economy as under:

1. High savings ratio.

2. Capital accommodation.

3. Paving to invest and innovate.

4. Technology transformation.

5. Technology transfer.

6. Ambitious entrepreneurs.

7. Emergence of knowledge workers and knowledge management.

8. Framework of efforts and rewards and division maker acceptable to the community at large.

9. Spatial and occupational mobility of productive resources (Five M’s: Manpower, machine power, material power, managerial power and money power).

10. Efficient information and communication system so as to minimise the effect of uncertainties.

11. Modernisation over all.

The degree to which these elements are present defines the strategy of sustainable development and growth of a developing economy under globalisation process.