Business Opportunities and Threats for Middle East Steel Industries (Sampling Iran, Iraq and Africa)

摘要

Statistical projection shows that 80 percent of all humanity, occupying more than 65 percent of the earth's land surface area, are living in developing countries, which are collectively also referred to as the South. The people of the South have largely been by-passed by the benefits of prosperity, progress and technology. It is almost a dramatic rehearsal of Charles Dickens 'A Tale of Two Cities'. The people of the developed countries of the North are affluent, the people of the South are poor; the economies of the North are strong and resilient, those of the South are weak and defenseless; the countries of the North control their destinies, those of the South vulnerable to external factors.The dichotomies that characterize the North-South divide seem to be intensifying with time. In the three decades after the Second World War, most countries of the South made significant economic and social progress. In fact, during eh 1960s and 1970s the developing countries as a group did better than the developed countries in rates of economic growth. The mid-1970s ushered in a regime of continuing disarray in the world economy, which eventually culminated in the world recession of 1980-83. While the North has been able to snap out of this recession, the South is still be devilled by acute economic crises ever since. Retrogression, persistent instability and uncertainty, and recurring financial crises have troubled the South and these have been reflected in such indicators of public well-being as infant mortality, life expectancy, levels of nutrition, incidence of disease, and school enrollment.