A large portion of government investment projects relates to activities of a general character, such as transportation, power or edu-cation, needed in almost all sectors of economic life and only partly dependent on the specific products of the country. Private projects are to a much greater extent directed towards the production of specific goods; and it is of primary importance to the economy as a whole that they be directed toward the correct products. Often not very much is known about the comparative cost advantages of a country; private firms can hardly do more than make cost estimates for a few products in which they are interested. As already observed, we are here faced with the most difficult problem of development policy: the search for sound projects. Government agencies will not, as a rule, be able to solve this problem by themselves. They may, by their general policy, as we observed in Chapter I, stimulate and give some guidance to the private investor. That general policy will be discussed in this chapter. In the search for sound projects an attempt may be made to study the country's possibilities in a more systematic way, by making a general survey of national resources: a description of the qualities of the soil in the various regions of the country, of the mineral de-