Figure 18-2 reveals some patterns that may be less familiar. Sub-Saharan Africa is often thought to be marginalized from the global economy. This is true in terms of the region's minuscule contribution to world exports and imports. Its merchandise exports constituted 3.6 percent of the world total in 1970, falling to just 1.8 percent by 2007. But viewed from the perspective of the region, trade has always accounted for a large share of Sub-Saharan Africa's GDP. In the 1970s the trade to GDP ratio, at 53 percent, was higher than in almost any other region at that time; in the 2000s, it averaged 66 percent, second only to East Asia. The problem for the region has not been the share of trade in output but the failure of trade and GDP to grow by very much overtime. South Asia, where India's economy dominates, is the region where trade continues to play the smallest role, although that is beginning to change with a greater emphasis on both exports in India and elsewhere.