privatization

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privatization Transfer of state-run enterprises to private ownership. It is the opposite of nationalization. In the 1980s, policy-makers in some European countries, as well as Canada, Japan, and New Zealand, maintained that economic growth would best be encouraged by governments selling nationalized industries to independent enterprises, which were then free to respond to market forces and create a more efficient and competitive company. In the early 1990s, the trend was taken up by many former Soviet-bloc countries.

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