Alongside the specific challenges faced by the agro-industrial sector, all enterprises
have to operate in the more general macroeconomic, legal and policy
environment. Under conditions of macroeconomic instability, capital investments
with significant sunk costs, as with technologies that are highly productspecific,
are deterred by the inherently greater risk. This situation can then be
further exacerbated with exchange rate misalignments that enhance uncertainty.
Where technologies and critical inputs have to be imported, foreign
exchange shortages linked to import licensing and foreign exchange allocation
systems can delay investments or impose additional costs on entrepreneurs,
such as in the form of ‘lobbying’ for foreign exchange.
In many developing countries government policies have been slow to adapt
to the ‘new reality’ of private enterprise. For example, although most countries
have undergone some process of structural adjustment, liberalization of controls
on investment and trade is uneven. Further, licensing of businesses remains
common. Variations in the interpretation and implementation of these policies
serve to create uncertainty and add costs (e.g. in the form of bribes) and delays
to business. Such conditions are far from conducive to private investment and
can act to deter foreign firms from investing at all, while discouraging more
risky (but also higher yielding) investments, such as are often associated with
more advanced technologies. These aspects are explored in more detail in
Chapter 5 of this volume