Export Promotion: A Decision Support Model Approach

Governments are increasingly confronted with scarce resources, which force their export promotion organisations to seek more efficient ways and methods. At the same time, with the export successes of the emerging economies, public export promotion policies of countries are confronted with diminishing returns, particularly when the traditional export promotion instruments are used. The DSM (Decision Support Model) approach to export promotion, which is adopted and explained in the book, is deeply rooted in the international marketing research literature and allows to identify, in the rapidly changing international environment, the most promising realistic export opportunities for exporting countries.

LUDO CUYVERS is emeritus professor of the University of Antwerp, Belgium, where he is still Director of the Centre for ASEAN Studies, and extraordinary professor at the North-West University (Potchefstroom campus), South Africa. He received his PhD degree in 1977 from the Faculty of Applied Economics, University of Antwerp, Belgium. Between 1989 and 2009 Ludo Cuyvers was a member of the Board of Directors of Office National du Ducroire (Brussels), the Belgian federal credit insurance company, and since 1991 he is member of Flanders Investment & Trade, the export and investment promotion organsation of the Flemish region of Belgium.

WILMA VIVIERS is a professor and the director of the School of Economics in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at the North-West University (Potchefstroom campus). She received her PhD in 1988 from the former Potchefstroom University of CHE. She received the ITRISA fellowship award for her contribution to the promotion of South African exports, the Women in Research award from the South African Association of Women Graduates as well as the NRF rating for established researchers. In 2011 she received the Department of Science and Technology's 'Distinguished Women in Science' runner-up award for her outstanding contribution to building South Africa's scientific and research knowledge base.