Meanwhile, interest rates at emergency lows in the United States have made it disconcertingly easy for emerging markets to import capital.
To prove its determination to get Saadiyat off the ground, it has declared that companies opening offices there will never pay any tax, can repatriate all their profits and capital, can import labour freely and need not take any local partners.
However, the Startup Act 2.0 needs serious changes which will allow us to import more capital from abroad.
But because import demand, capital flows and the need for foreign workers declined precipitously in the West, almost all developing countries are suffering.
Vincent Marush Sando, who coordinates a domestic-cotton promotion campaign in Mozambique's capital Maputo, says Africa should place stiff import duties on used clothes from the West.
Dubai's attractions are many: In addition to glitzy shopping malls, it boasts so-called "free zones, " which allow for 100% foreign ownership, 100% repatriation of capital and profits, exemption from corporate tax and no import duties.
Sovereign wealth funds and countries like China who export a lot more than they import and need a place to stash their excess capital have likewise been glad to lend me some cash.
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EarthFirst, John Stanton's firm, claims to be at "the forefront of alternative energy sources, " according to its Web site, but still gets most of its revenue from moneylosing waste-disposal and biodiesel-import businesses, and recently filed to allow Laurus Capital to sell 76 million shares, whose proceeds would be used to retire convertible debt held by Laurus.
At the same time there will be a rise in prices of capital- and skill-intensive goods and services which China needs to import.
In a fine example of the law of unintended consequences, Mr Mittal says that it is cheaper for Bharti, based in Delhi, to import components from Hong Kong than to buy them from a supplier in the capital.
Manufacturers also typically rely on the ability to import parts - something that may prove impossible for local companies so long as international capital controls stay in place and the banking system remains dysfunctional.
The World Bank calculates that import tariffs lowered returns in Brazilian farming by 5% in 1997, whereas tariffs reduced returns in capital-intensive manufacturing by a full 22%.
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