LDI and Microtrade on Sky News

Sky News conducts a live interview with Professor Y.S. Lee, Director of the Law and Development Institute and Professor Colin Picker, Senior Fellow of the Law and Development Institute and Associate Professor of Law, University of New South Wales, on the Law and Development Institute and its new development project, “microtrade”.

For the countries that cannot initiate large-scale development projects for political, economic and social constraints, a smaller development initiative such as microtrade can help people rise up from poverty. Microtrade is a system of trade based on small-scale production of local products which populations of the poorest countries can produce with limited technological and capital resources that they have.

By promoting international trade of those local products and taking advantage of higher prices in the markets of developed countries, microtrade aims to generate the level of income that will help populations of the poorest countries to escape from the worst poverty.
Microtrade can also be used to help economically disadvantaged groups within developed countries such as Aboriginal people in Australia, having the same constraints as in poorer nations. There have been successes in both situations where traditional goods are produced and exported to more advantaged areas in a win-win situation: genuine traditional crafts at reasonable prices, producing enough profit to increase the wherewithal and standard of living of those involved.