Trade and Poverty: A Case Study of the SA Clothing Industry

One of the stated aims of policies of economic openness and liberalisation has been poverty reduction through growth (Culpeper 2005: 4). Trade policy and poverty link in the following ways: trade policy affects trade, which in turn affects poverty through its implications for the economic activities in which poor people participate; its effects on the prices of goods and services purchased by poor people; and effects on government taxation and spending, which affects poor people's entitlements from government (Page 2004: 2).