Mauritius, an example for a developing countrys change in the process of globalization

The following article was written by Lena as a part of her revision for the a-levels on English Language in 2005. I hope this will be handy for anyone having to revise for “English GK”

Mauritius, an example for a developing country’s change in the process of globalization

Mauritius a good example, but why?

Mauritius is a small island in the ocean of India.

With about 1.2 million inhabitants it can be used in order to show the positive but also negative consequences of globalization. In the last 30 to 40 years Mauritius has experienced an enormous structural change, which can be divided into three parts:

Mass poverty in the 70’s

In 1968 Mauritius became an independent country. Before that time the island had been a British colony. Over 90 % of the agricultural land was used for the fabrication of sugar cane. This mono culture had been the cause for many dependencies. There were several reasons for that. On the one hand it was relying on import products, but on the other hand the first world countries dictated the price of sugar cane. Besides, there was high rate of unemployment, as well as bad infrastructure and all in all an in poverty living population.

Decrease of poverty in the 80’s

Mauritius’ decrease of poverty illustrates the growing ambition of foreign companies to produce yet more cost-efficient. In the 80’s this movement tends more and more towards international division of labour between industrial countries and less developed countries. For some scientists it is exactly this development which represents the start of globalization. Not many developing countries profited from the international division of labour, the winners were rather the industrial countries. Mauritius though is clearly an exception. Especially the textile and clothing industry from Hong Kong used the island for production. The economic boom can be shown by some figures.

• The number of working people tripled itself to 90.000
• The rate of unemployment declined against zero
• The number of households, which live under the poverty line, declined from 70% to 17,8%

The economic boom was reflected by all levels of the population. Especially the broad underclass developed to a society of consume and thus is able to buy high quality products such as TV’s. The broad underclass became a middleclass, which hadn’t existed before.

Crisis in the end of the 90’s

The economic boom’s consequences have faded towards the end of the 90’s. One of the major reasons for that was the liberation of trade. Mauritius wasn’t protected anymore against the competition of the Asian “Low Labour Cost Countries”. Another problem which was related to the growing competition was the increase of labour cost. Foreign companies were able to produce more cost-efficient in other developing countries.

The following figure illustrates this problem:

(china 50 cent/hour, Mauritius 1$/hour)

Many foreign companies left the island to invest in other developing countries.
Between 1991 and 2000 the number of the textile and clothing companies decreased by 25%.
The number of unemployment increased from 2.3% (1991) to 8.6% (2000).
Those who once belonged to the middle class fell back to the broad underclass.
The Globalization’s only winner was the Mauritian upper class who became even richer than before.

Conclusion

“The rich become richer and the poor become even poorer.”
I think this sentence perfectly shows the consequences of globalization for developing countries.