text: **5.4 Globalisation and OSH**
  **Globalisation**is an**economic development accelerating during the past three decades**. Over the 
  last decades, production and services have become less and less solely based on national pre- 
  production or national service suppliers but instead on international supply chains. 316**International**
  **supply chains**require logistics connections between countries and continents, harmonised technical 
  standards, and, as far as possible, common legal rules and agreements, be it for services or materials 
  and products. The development of such supply chains divides the necessary work related to a product 
  or a service in parts, which might also mean**that the OSH risks might not be shared in a fair or equal**
  **way**. A fair divide is most probable between economies of similar levels of development, but a main part 
  of**globalisation is trade between different levels of economic and technological development**. 
  
  A relevant part of outsourcing to less-developed countries**took place in sectors with high OSH risks**: 
  mining, metallurgic processes, hazardous waste, basic chemicals and textiles. At the same time, EU 
  enterprises ‘import’ health and safety risks by producing goods for export, for example, vehicles, 
  machines, food or specialty chemicals. A**full assessment of the divide of OSH risks needs a case-**
  **by-case description**; a variety of different shares of risk is possible: there might take place reverse 
  developments, for example, open-pit mining in a country will probably bear much lower risks than 
  underground coal mining in the EU, and the risks inside the EU might increase due to (partly illegal) 
  import of non-standard or even prohibited products and equipment into the EU (e.g. non certified 
  machines or equipment, cooling agents), and the other way around: EU enterprises might produce and 
  export products whose use is prohibited in the EU (e.g. pesticides). Regarding the**globalisation of**