1. Introduction Regional Disparities Die Hard
REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES IN BRAZIL1 2 GUSTAVO MAIA GOMES 1. Introduction Regional disparities die hard. As far as the Northeast, Brazil’s poorest region, is concerned, GDP per capita in 1999 was 46,6 per cent of the country’s corresponding figure – almost exactly as it had been four decades before, in 1960. The latter is no arbitrary picking. (Recall that Sudene, the regional development institution, was created in December, 1959.) Truly, some improvement (and some deterioration) have happened in sub-periods between 1960 and the present. But fluctuations are fluctuations, and in the very long run, the lack of change in relative positions is striking. The more so because reducing the economic gap of the Northeastern region vis-à-vis the rest of the country has been for decades a persistent goal of the Brazilian state. To be sure, there has been change in the territorial allocation of production, as previously economically non-existent regions began to show up in the statistics. Correspondingly, in the seventies, frontier states such as Mato Grosso and Goiás, have experienced strong growth. The same, if more recently, has happened to Rondônia and Tocantins. Part of this has been a consequence of government initiatives, in the form of infrastructure construction, the granting of tax holidays and incentives for private investment, and investment initiatives of the state enterprises. At the state level, convergence of per capita GDPs do appear in the statistics, especially from 1947 to the mid-1980s. At the regional level, especially from the late 1960s on, the empty space of the Center- West has emerged as a dynamic agricultural region; also, after a long-lasting stagnation, the Northern states of Amazonas (thanks to the Manaus industrial pole), Pará (mostly iron ore mining, some cattle breeding, legal and illegal tree-cutting and wood products), and others (e.g.
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