covered HSC Topic One – The Global Economy, and reviewed some of the main features of the global economy. It was noted that economies have become far more integrated in recent years because of flows of trade, finance, investment, technology and labour. International institutions have become more important as economies have become more closely linked to each other. There has been significant progress in recent years to remove trade barriers between nations. Yet with the increasing integration of the global economy, there remains an extraordinary gap in wealth between rich and poor nations