Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa

It is convenient to take these four countries together because they have certain interesting and important elements in common, apart from their historic links with the UK which still persist in various ways. These countries are mainly producers of raw materials and agricultural products, and in most cases, apart from New Zealand, have very substantial resource endowments of minerals. They have in many substantial respects the income per head (in South Africa at least among the white population) of the developed countries. Yet they are major net importers of capital with regular programmes of substantial borrowing on international and foreign markets. None of them is a capital exporter to any significant extent. Despite being part of the world trading framework these countries have fairly nationalistic attitudes regarding financial institutions, and most have severe restrictions on the activities of foreign banks within their borders. There are virtually no external holdings of their currencies, and these currencies are used very little in international trade or finance. They were all hard hit by the fall in commodity prices after the OPEC recession, so their economic histories in recent years have shown some common features. Nevertheless, their problems have differed considerably, as have their policy responses.