Commodity and Trade Policy in Africa: The Terms of Trade of African Producers

Abstract

The development of productive processes in the different regions of Africa entails, necessarily, effort directed in two directions: on the one hand, a local development of a variety of activities which, employing European techniques, may be achieved gradually, as the abilities of the populations to make use of them progressively develop; in every economic society there is a wide range of such activities; on the other hand, a development of activities directed toward the exterior world and subject to the requirements of the international division of labour, operating through the system of international pricing; the level at which this necessary contact can be established dominates the general formation of prices and of money incomes in each region, as well as the techniques to be used and the possible volumes of production.