Export-Led Growth in East Asia: Lessons for Europe's Transition Economies

Abstract

This paper summarizes some East Asian experiences of export led growth and export promotion policies, and discusses possible lessons for today's European transition economies. It is argued that the East Asian developments identify a potentially important role for public support to infrastructure development and provision of various business development services (such as insurance and trade finance, information, and marketing skills) to small and medium sized exporters. These policies should be neutral across sectors rather than selective. The Asian experiences also point to the importance of maintaining competitive exchange rates, which, however, may be hard to achieve in those transition economies that aim to fulfill the Maastricht criteria regarding price and exchange rate stability