Hegde cleverly brought into focus the currency problem and talked of a Saarc or even an Asian common currency. Economic journalists were too polite to tell him that talk of a common currency is poppycock, unless the issue of economic policy convergence, notably keeping inflation under control at any cost, has been threshed out. It was obvious that Hedge, a clever commerce minster, was out of depth. Perhaps, he had in mind the terms of trade problem. If so, he was rather naive, for globalisation is all about volume growth of exports, based on the international division of labour. Even so, it will not do to ignore a key point made by Hegde. This is the lack of policy commitment to exports. There was no co-ordination among the different ministries on the export objective, he said. No wonder the country does not have an export investment strategy. Liberalisation is all about expanding thescale of production, in excess of that warranted by the size of the domestic market: the excess output being planned for export. This is clearly not happening. Hegde is talking of making a fresh start with dollar export zones where investment will be predominantly for export. But EOUs have not clicked, except in software. So Hegde has set his heart on exports of soft toys, leather garments, etc, by dereserving their production, currently confined to the small-scale sector. Hegde may succeed in creating a dynamic export enclave, but the economy would remain basically inward-looking despite liberalisation.