Globalisation and trade blocs
The word “globalisation” became popular in the 1980s because it seemed to capture the new world in which business was operating. Since then it is not just stock markets that have gone global. The economist Philippe Legrain has calculated that by 2010 China exported as much in six hours as it had in the whole of 1978.
That year is significant because it marked the start of the modern era of globalisation, with Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening of the Chinese economy, beginning in December 1978.
Over the next 20 years, other countries took significant steps to facilitate globalisation and new regional trade blocs were formed.
The UK, under prime minister Margaret Thatcher, abolished exchange controls, laying the foundation ...
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