Resource information
Rapid economic growth in China has
boosted its demand for commodities. At the same time, many
commodity sectors have experienced declining demand from
high-income northern economies. This paper examines two
hypotheses of the consequences of this shift in final
markets for the organization of global value chains in
general, and for the role played in them by southern
producers in particular. The first is that there will be a
decline in the importance of standards in global value
chains. The second is that there will be increasing
constraints in the ability of low-income producers to
upgrade to higher value niches in their chains. Detailed
case studies of the Thai cassava industry and the Gabon
timber sector confirm both these hypotheses. It remains to
be seen how widespread these trends are across other sectors.
