North-South interdependence: The case of the Federal Republic of Germany

This study examines economic relations between West Germany and the developing countries in the fields of trade, capital flows and migration of labour. Activity in most fields has expanded enormously since the mid-1960s; in addition the traffic has become markedly less one-way. For the purposes of analysis the developing countries are differentiated according to their economic capacity; prospects for co-operation with West Germany appear to differ markedly according to their stage of development. So German development policy, for its part, needs to employ a variety of different strategies. The more highly developed the partner country, the more the field can be left to private initiative, supported by a liberal foreign trade regime.