Guinea-Bissau, a small country emerging from civil war and a string of coups, has seen its tiny export economy overrun by illegal drugs.
But during the 1840s a bank was established, a tiny export trade began in sandalwood and horses, Spanish Benedictines established a monastery at New Norcia, and a pastoral settlement opened up the Geraldton district, 300 miles (500 km) north of Perth.
The ban affects Japan's relatively tiny exports — worth about $40 million last year — of mainly gourmet beef to countries like China and the United States.
An American official said the tiny country exported about $290 million in smuggled diamonds last year, a huge windfall for a near-bankrupt state.
But Dutch authorities are investigating the husband and wife who run Asklepios, a tiny import-export company, out of their home in the Dutch suburb of Naaldwijk, according to Raymond Salet, a spokesman for the General Health Inspection Service.
Eventually, this could boost India's currently tiny defence exports of under $200m a year, emulating the outsourcing success of India's information-technology companies".Like Israel, India has the right skills and low-cost design and testing capabilities to compete internationally," says Rahul Chaudhry, chief executive of Tata Power's strategic-electronics division.
But it's hard to imagine that such a move would accomplish much more than increasing demand for glass eels caught in the U.S., where, in 2013, Maine fisherman caught eighteen thousand pounds of the tiny creatures for export to Asia, bringing in about thirty-three million dollars.
Although Europe's subsidised exports are tiny in comparison to US exports, a British government study found they had a disproportionate impact on former colonies in west Africa.
Last year, even their tiny neighbor Uruguay exported more beef per capita than Argentina.
Even tiny Uruguay now exports more beef than its neighbour across the River Plate thanks partly to big investments by Argentines who like its commitment to the rule of law.
The big industry was textiles, but handbags, toys, watches and shoes also poured out of tiny sweat-shops for export to America and Europe.
