75 % in 2017, while for 2018 it foresees a range between 2. 5 % and 3. 5 %. the changes owe mainly to the fact that mining activity fell more than expected in the first months of this year and that its subsequent recovery has been slower, as the growth prospects for the rest of the sectors have not changed much. thus, it is still believed that the return to growth rates in line with potential growth and closing gaps, is consistent with an economy that shows no major imbalances, a gradual dissipation of some of the factors that have hindered a better performance in the past few years — such as the sharp drop in mining investment in the last three years — and the recovery of confidence indicators. plus a more expansionary monetary policy and a greater external impulse than in recent years. as for fiscal policy, it is assumed that the consolidation announced by the government will continue ( table 1 ). on the external front, the data of recent months do not show great divergences with respect to forecasts. developed economies continue to show signs of recovery in a context in which their inflation indicators have stabilized and their monetary policies remain highly expansionary. at the same time, beyond recent episodes of volatility, financial conditions remain favorable in perspective, particularly for emerging economies. this, together with still low risk premiums, stock markets that have held on to positive returns, capital flows that are sustained, as well as the withdrawal of the monetary impulse by the federal reserve that has caused no major disruption in the markets. as shown in a box in the mp report, volatility indicators have remained low during the period, contrasting with persistently high political and economic uncertainty indices. the gap between these indicators has caused some concern, as it could indicate that markets are not properly reading the risks associated with the present economic and political environment. however, the fact that the two indexes capture elements other than uncertainty, could justify this situation, so they must be taken as complements. china ’ s growth outlook remains stable, although incoming information has created doubts regarding its growth pace for the rest of the year and has increased preoccupation about the stability of its financial system, especially in a context of internal and external monetary normalization. it must be noted that in latin america, several economies have seen activity weaken beyond expectations, but lower inflation has allowed to normalize monetary policies faster, which should help regain better numbers. brazil, the main economy in the region

whole off - shoring process as we now know it – first in terms of merchandise trade in east and south east asia and later in the outsourcing of service activities for which india has come to attention in recent years. to begin with, one may note that a key characteristic of asian urbanisation has been the heavy concentration of economic activities in coastal based urban regions. 1 in fact, japanese economic growth in the 1950s and 1960s owed much to the conscious strategy of concentrating economic activity in the 500 km tokkaido urban corridor stretching from tokyo through nagoya to osaka. douglas irwin talked about the absence of policy effects in venables ’, paper. the concentration of economic activity in this corridor in japan was policy driven through focused infrastructure investment in the region as typified by the shinkansen - the bullet train. by 1970, 60 per cent of japan ’ s urban population ( and a larger proportion of the economy ) was concentrated in this region. this economic concentration economised on infrastructure investment that would have been larger had it been spread out over a larger part of the country. the geographical proximity of different activities gave rise to agglomeration economies that aided rapid productivity growth and also enabled innovation in traditional production processes through the introduction of new systems such as just - in - time ( jit ) modes of inventory management, great outsourcing of components, and total quality control processes that contributed to the drastic reduction in manufacturing costs that was the foundation of japan ’ s competitiveness. the more efficient inventory management resulting from jit, overall supply management, total quality control systems also enabled significant reduction in corporate need for bank financing, leading to significant change in bank portfolios. furthermore, the japanese economy for detailed discussion see mohan ( 2006 ). benefited from high savings and investment rates, in excess of 40 per cent of gdp by the late 1960s, a pattern repeated by some of the later star performers of east and south east asia. thus high economic growth has been achieved in much of asia, the main growth story of the latter part of the last century, without significant absorption of foreign savings. it is no wonder then that raghuram rajan and his colleagues cannot find correlation between the use of foreign capital and economic growth. i describe this process at some length to essentially make the point that this was the precursor to today ’ s off - shoring of tasks. the idea of outsourcing components in the engineering industry, particularly the automobile industry, originally emerged in the tokka