Global forces have taken on a more fierce and pervasive thrust in recent decades. The year 1990 seems to have been a turning point in that march because global flows then reached unprecedented magnitudes, because developing and emerging economies became important participants in the global economy, and because capital flows to developing economies bound them mora tightly and mora perilously to the global one. The year 1990 was also a break point in Jamaica's external attitude, heralding a mora liberal trade, payments and investment regime.