Global Groupings Its hard to group countries by development as its subjective and lots of countries like India are

in the middle- it is neither terrible nor well developed. There are two groupingseconomic and political Economic Groupings High, low, medium income Overall levels of wealth and its power

OPEC -states which countries produce and sell oil OECD -high wealth states G8 -eight major economies NICs - newly industrialised e.g. Brazil, Mexico LDCs -50 poorest states Political Groupings Trade blocs have been created for easier trade between states. Trade blocs consist of states which differ greatly in terms of their economic groupings. National boundaries can be crossed. Benefits of political groupings o Removes internal tariffs o E.g. Tesco in EU increased customers by 75 million Larger market- increased demand. Volume increased but manufacturing costs decreased Firms that produce high quality goods have comparative advantage and can spread the sale of goods to new areas o E.g. French wine- they have comparative advantage over rest of EU as known for good quality)

EU (not just trade blocs) -27 countries NAFTA -Mexico, Canada, USA CARICOM ASEAN (Asia) COMESA (Africa) MERCOSUR (S.America)