Factores que afectan el proceso de flotación

There are a number of issues that need to be clarified that relate to the effectiveness of Planning. These have implications for our study. These issues include, for example, the extent to which planning has or does not have an effect on an actual economy. The contention is that it is the system or structure of a country that is the main determinant of an economy, and that policy and planning are marginal to the goals and objectives attained in an economy.

The second issue relates to the size of a country as the main determinant of social and economic development, and not policies or planning. It may be contended that planning in Oman has been effective because it is a small country with a small population of about 2 million.

’ In the twentieth century, for example, states acquired the means to manage or direct national economies, either through autarchy and state planning, as was the case with state-directed economies in Britain and Germany in the two world wars, or through Keynesian measures using monetary and fiscal policy to influence the decision of economic actors and thus alter economic outcomes (Hirst and Thompson, 1996:pp. 174-175). Thus in the advanced Western industrial states it was widely believed that national

economic management could continue to ensure both full employment and relatively steady growth. In

these societies, in which the majority o f the population remained manual workers even into the 1960s, uniform national services in health, education and welfare remained popular.

The third contention is that countries with a valuable resource such as oil will achieve development as a result of this resource and that policies and planning are marginal to this development. Hence, it may be contended that Oman has oil, and therefore its economic and social development is determined by this fact and that policies and planning in Oman are marginal to its development.

If the system or structure of an economy, rather than policies or planning were the more important determinants, then we would find Latin American countries — with weak planning and policies for most part of their modem history — to be at the forefi'ont of economic and social development.

In fact, one finds extremes of poverty and structural dislocation (debt, capital flight, etc.) in some of the resource-rich countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia (Gilbert, 1990).

The impact that policy and planning can have on economic and social development is illustrated by the case of Sri Lanka. In the 1960s and 1970s, this country had a per capita GNP which was not too dissimilar to that of India or Pakistan. Whilst the latter countries had a life expectancy of about 52 years, Sri Lanka’s approached 70. In fact, life expectancy in Sri Lanka rose from 43 years in 1946 to 67 years in 1980. In the same period, infant mortality declined from 141 to 39 per thousand live births (Gutkind,

1988:p.l40). According to the Human Development Report 1993 (UNDP, 1993), in

1990 India had per capita income of US$ 360 and life expectancy at birth of 59 years; Pakistan with a per capita income of US$ 400 had a life expectancy of 58 years and Sri Lanka^ with a per capita income of US$ 470 had life expectancy of 71 years.

The results in Sri Lankan development are better compared to Pakistan and India

because of the systematic application of basic needs policies. Clearly, policies and

' In fact, Sri Lanka’s rank of 86 in Human Development Index in 1990, among the 173 countries listed in

the Human Development Report of 1993, was 44 ranks higher than its GNP per capita rank {ibid. :pp. 135-

136).

planning do have an impact on social and economic processes. It is most unlikely that Sri Lanka with a lower per capita GNP (in the 1960s and 1970s) than Pakistan and India would have achieved more favourable results than these countries without effective planning (Gutkind, 1988).

Regarding the size of a country — if this was the major determinant of development, i.e. that a smaller country is better equipped to develop than a large one — then one would find India achieving greater development than China, which has a larger population than India. In fact as we shall see later one finds China’s development performance exceeding India’s in almost every economic and social indicator.

The third contention regarding resources is weak. If resources alone were the main determinants of economic and social development then one would find some Afncan countries such as Nigeria and Gabon at the forefront of development. But this is not the case. Even more than African countries one would expect Brazil and Mexico, possessing a variety of valuable resources (oil, minerals, forests, etc.), to be at the forefront of economic and social development. In fact, as we have mentioned above, the resource-rich Latin American countries are beset by numerous structural problems in their economy which are reflected in, for example, great social inequality and poverty (Gilbert, 1990).

Hence, Oman’s success in economic and social development cannot be simply attributed to oil or size of population. As we shall see in Chapter V, without planning, Oman would not have been able to carry out a successful structural adjustment programme in the wake of the oil price collapse in 1986, without the interference of the IFls. Effective policies, strategies and planning have been crucial in enabling Oman to achieve a far superior performance in economic and social development, especially during the period 1980-90% compared to a number of other oil exporting countries.

’ This was the period when oil prices started their decline and a number of oil exporting developing countries among other countries, had to undertake SAPs under the supervision o f the M s.