F63 - Economic Impacts of Globalization: Economic DevelopmentReturn

The article deals with industrial policy in the BRICS countries, which is an important instrument of their development. First, the importance of industrial policy is stated. There are numerous approaches to it: the extreme ones are the neoliberal approach, advocating no interventions of the state in the market; the other extreme is interventions either directly by subsidies to chosen branches or indirectly by building institutional surroundings which are comfortable for industrial development. The development of theoretical approaches to industrial policy is also discussed: from structuralists to new structuralists, who try to connect a market as the main mechanism with an industrial policy. Industrial policies practised in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are then described. Some statistical data are given which illustrate the position of the BRICS countries in the present-day world as for their industrial performance. China seems to be the relatively most successful in this respect. Finally, some questions concerning state capitalism and industrial policy are discussed.

The article deals with the economic dimension of the Czech Republic's official development assistance. It discusses that aid and trade need not act contradictorily; in fact, they may work complementarily. In particular, the study focuses on the Czech Republic's bilateral official development assistance towards Serbia, which shows synergic effects of development assistance and business interests. The first part of the paper is concerned with the various forms of private sector involvement in the Czech Republic's official development assistance. The second part describes the Czech Republic's official development assistance on the example of Serbia. First, this section concentrates on the Czech Republic's relationship towards the Western Balkans and its bilateral relationship with Serbia. Afterwards, it regards the particular projects implemented by Czech actors operating in the framework of the official development assistance. Specifically, it deals with three Aid for Trade projects carried out by the Czech Chamber of Commerce and two projects implemented by Czech companies in the region of Pešter/Sandžak and the municipality of Kruščica.