UN General Assembly
1959

62. Now, the development of heavy industry in the under-developed countries meets with two serious difficulties. First, heavy industry usually requires large capital funds. The problem of finance in relation to heavy industry is much more serious than in connexion with light industry, simply because much larger sums of capital are required. In the second place, an under-developed country, establishing some branch of heavy industry — let us say an automobile factory or a farm-machine factory — finds itself faced with the paradoxical situation of a very limited domestic market in the initial period. The products of light industry find in the large populations in the underdeveloped countries a natural and ready market. The products of heavy industry, because of their cost and the limited purchasing power of the peoples in the under-developed countries, may have only a very limited market at the beginning. This is a field in which — and I again fall back on the wise words of the Secretary-General — "regional co-operation and assistance from or through the United Nations creates possibilities unattainable for many of the countries concerned if they work in isolation or in a more limited co-operation with others”.