CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Exports have long played a role in the analysis of regional economies, primarily through the concept of the economic base. The need to export is predicated on solely economic reasons. According to Miloslavsky and Shatz (2006), much of the early thinking on exports in economic development was brought together in series of articles by Richard B. Andrews in the 1980s. In the first article (Andrews, 1953), he stated the basic role of export as: “There is a fairly general consensus, that the economic base refers to those activities of an urban community which export goods and services to points outside the economic confines of the community or which market their goods and services to persons who come from outside the community’s economic boundaries. The base activities can be considered the wage earners of the community family. Without them, or if they decline in earning power, the economic health of the community suffers accordingly. Export promotion is a deliberate government policy undertaken to encourage and boast the production of commodities for export. This is meant to diversify the export base and led to a more favourable economic.