[15] The first modern land use projects were established by French settlers or Creole immigrants from the Mascarene Islands in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

[15] To facilitate the processing and marketing of these commodities, the immigrants established a number of financial and commercial enterprises and built a small, modern railroad system.

[15] They then brought some Malagasy into this modern sector of the economy, either as wage laborers and sharecroppers on the foreign-owned plantations, or as low-level employees in the civil service or business enterprises.

[15] After independence the Philibert Tsiranana regime did little to change the French domination of the modern sector of the economy, despite increasing outrage at this continued economic dependence.

[15] This anger, together with growing concern over an unequal distribution of wealth that left the southern and western parts of the island in relative poverty, caused the ouster of Tsiranana in 1972 and a shift in economic policy.

[15] Ratsiraka's policy of "revolution from above" went beyond confiscating or buying out foreign firms and turning them over to Malagasy ownership; he intended to socialize the economy by nationalizing major enterprises.

[15] Firms left under private control were required to buy and sell at state-controlled prices, and the state closely monitored the repatriation of profits.

[15] Almost as important as this institutional reform was the regime's intention, announced in an economic plan for the 1978-80 period, to increase dramatically the level of government capital investment in all sectors of the economy in order to improve the availability of goods and services to all.

[15] By the start of the 1980s, however, Ratsiraka's attempt to fashion viable socialist institutions and to stimulate the economy through increased investment had failed to improve economic production and welfare.

[15] Despite the availability of significant agricultural and mineral resources, the economy was less productive than at the start of the decade when the average per capita income was already among the lowest in the world.

[15] The only apparent effect of the enhanced level of investment, which reached all-time highs in the 1978-80 period, was to put the country deeply in debt to foreign creditors and, therefore, pave the way for a series of structural adjustment agreements signed with the IMF and the World Bank during the 1980s and the early 1990s.

[23] A small but growing part of the economy is based on mining of ilmenite, with investments emerging in recent years, particularly near Tulear and Fort Dauphin.

The Ambatovy mine (nickel & cobalt - Sherrit International 40%, Sumitomo 27.5%, Korea Resources 27.5%, SNC-Lavalin 5%) is a huge operation and has cost US$4.76 million to date [27] and is due to start production in 2011.

[citation needed] The Madagascar-U.S. Business Council was formed as a collaboration between the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Malagasian artisan producers in Madagascar in 2002.

[citation needed]President Ravalomanana rose to prominence through his agro-foods TIKO company, and is known for attempting to apply many of the lessons learned in the world of business to running the government.

[citation needed] The absence of quota limits on textile imports to the European market under the Lomé Convention helped stimulate this growth.

A six-month political crisis triggered by a dispute over the outcome of the presidential elections held in December 2001 virtually halted economic activity in much of the country in the first half of 2002.

Madagascar holds great potential for agricultural development, mainly due to the large variety of soil types and climatic diversity.

[citation needed] In 2000, Madagascar embarked on the preparation of a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) under the Heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC) Initiative.

The boards of the IMF and of the World Bank concurred in December 2000 that the country was eligible under the HIPC Initiative, and Madagascar reached the decision point for debt relief.

About 87% of the child labour is in agriculture, mainly in the production of vanilla, tea, cotton, cocoa, copra (dried meat of coconut), sisal, shrimp harvest and fishing.