Trade in Brazil

Brazil

Mosjeed of Brazil

Country

Official Name: Federative Republic of Brazil (República Fede-rativa do Brasil).
Short Name: Brazil (Brasil).
Term for Citizen(s): Brazilian(s).
Capital: Brasília.
Independence: September 7, 1822 (from Portugal).

Geography

Size and Location: Standard figure is 8,511,996 square kilometers (including oceanic islands of Arquipélago de Fernando de Noronha, Atol das Rocas, Ilha da Trindade, Ilhas Martin Vaz, and Penedos de São Pedro e São Paulo). According to revised figure of Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (Fundação Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística--IBGE), which takes into account new measurements, total area is 8,547,403.5 square kilometers. Brazil occupies about 47 percent of continental area. Country situated between 05°16'20" north latitude and 33°44'32" south latitude, and between 34°47'30" east longitude and 73°59'32" west longitude. Its boundaries extend 23,086 kilometers, of which 7,367 kilometers on Atlantic Ocean. To north, west, and south, Brazil shares boundaries with all South American countries except Chile and Ecuador.

Brazil in Map

Standard Time: With an east-to-west territorial dimension of 4,319 kilometers, Brazil has four time zones. In most of country, time is three hours earlier than Greenwich time. Between summer months of October and February, country adopts daylight savings time, setting clock forward by one hour, in Southeast (Sudeste), Center-West (Centro-Oeste), and South (Sul) regions, and in states of Bahia in Northeast (Nordeste) and Tocantins in North (Norte).
Maritime Claims: Exclusive economic zone 322 kilometers (200 nautical miles).
Boundary Disputes: A short section of boundary with Paraguay, just west of Salto das Sete Quedas (Guairá Falls) on Paraná; and two short sections of boundary with Uruguay--Arroio Invernada area of Cuareim and islands at confluence of Quaraí and Uruguai.
Topography and Climate: Consisting of dense forest, semiarid scrub land, rugged hills and mountains, rolling plains, and long coastal strip, Brazil's landmass dominated by Amazon Basin and Central Highlands. Principal mountain ranges (Serra do Mar) parallel Atlantic coast. Climate varies from mostly tropical in North, where it is seldom cold, to more temperate in South, where it snows in some places. Also wide range of subtropical variations. World's largest rain forest located in Amazon Basin. Higher annual measurements (26°C to 28°C) occur in Northeast's interior and mid- and lower Amazon River. Lowest values (under 18°C) occur in hilly areas of Southeast and largest part of South. Highest absolute values, over 40°C, are recorded in Northeast's low interior lands; in Southeast's depressions, valleys, and lowlands; in Center-West's Pantanal (Great Wetlands) and lower areas; and in South's central depressions and Uruguai Valley. Lowest absolute temperatures often show negative values in most of South, where frosts and snow usual. Rainy areas correspond to Pará's coastal lands and western Amazonas, where annual rainfall greater than 3,000 millimeters. In Southeast on Serra do Mar (São Paulo State), recorded annual rainfall exceeds 3,500 millimeters. Drought areas located in interior Northeast, where annual rainfall under 500 millimeters. Maximum precipitation occurs during summer-autumn in most parts of country, except for Roraima and north Amazonas, where rainy season occurs during winter because these two states are located in Northern Hemisphere.
Principal Rivers: Vast, dense drainage system consisting of eight hydrographic basins. Amazon and Tocantins-Araguaia basins account for 56 percent of total drainage area. World's greatest fluvial island, Bananal, located in Center-West Region on Araguaia. With ten of world's twenty greatest rivers, Amazon (Amazonas) is world's largest in volume of water and one of world's longest (6,762 kilometers, of which 3,615 kilometers are in Brazil), discharging 15.5 percent of all fresh water flowing into oceans from rivers. Union of Paraná and Iguaçu in South, at border between Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay, forms Iguaçu Falls at Foz do Iguaçu.

Economy

Gross Domestic Product (GDP): Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) estimated US$775 billion for 1997, as compared with US$387 billion for 1992. EIU's estimated GDP real growth rate for 1997, 3.7 percent; and 1998, 4.0 percent. Of 1995 GDP of US$717 billion, 47.3 percent generated by trade and services, 42.0 percent by industry, and 10.7 percent by agriculture.

Brazilian GDP

Per Capita GDP and Minimum Wage: Per capita GDP US$5,128 (1997). GDP per capita average annual growth rate, 0.8 per-cent (1985-94). Minimum wage as of June 1995: US$108.46, or just over R$100 a month (for value of real--see Glossary), as compared with US$68.93, or R$70 a month, in July 1994, amounting to an actual increase of only 10 percent because of inflation. Minimum wage raised by 12 percent in May 1996.
Inflation: Inflation reached 50 percent per month by June 1994 and averaged 31.2 percent a month in 1994, for total of 2,294.0 percent that year. As result of Real Plan, declined to monthly rates of between 1 and 3 percent in 1995, for an annual rate of 25.9 percent. In 1996: 16.5 percent; 1997: 7.2 percent.
Employment and Unemployment: Estimated labor force in 1997: 65.5 million. Services sector employed 66 percent of women and 42 percent of men; industry, 14 percent of women and 23 percent of men; business, 15 percent of women and 15 percent of men; civil construction, 11 percent of men; other activities, 5 percent of women and 9 percent of men. Men held 61 percent of total jobs. Women's wages averaged 62 percent of those of men but declined to 54 percent in services sector. Recorded unemployment rate (includes only people actively looking for work and over age fifteen) in 1997: 5.5 percent.
Agriculture: One of world's leading exporters of agricultural products. Grain production in 1996: 73 million tons. According to estimates of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of United Nations, Brazil produced 79.4 million tons of grains (record crop) in 1995, as compared with 56.1 million tons in 1990. Center-West and South and Rondônia account for 90 percent of crops. In 1995, 81.6 million tons of crops har-vested, but producers saw their income reduced by about US$10.4 billion, or 26 percent, owing to price decreases. Country has 46.5 million hectares under cultivation, 174.1 million hectares in grazing lands, and 140.6 million hectares in arable land. Crop year runs from June to May. From 1982 to 1992, total cultivated area fell by 30 percent, but production of certain grains, in tons per hectare, increased by 14.9 percent. Agricultural sector employed 29.4 percent of labor force in 1992. It accounted for 10.7 percent of GDP in 1996. It accounts for almost 40 percent of exports. Except for wheat, Brazil largely self-sufficient in food. Each farmer feeds 3.6 city dwellers, whereas 2.5 farmers were needed to feed each city dweller in 1940. Brazil is world's largest exporter of coffee, orange juice concentrate, and tobacco, and second largest exporter of sugar and soybeans. In addition to sugar, Brazil produces a large quantity of ethanol (mainly used as fuel) from crushed sugarcane. Other important crops: manioc, corn, and rice. In addition to oranges, principal fruits are lemons, mangoes, guavas, passion fruit, and tangerines.
Industry: Capital goods (see Glossary) production increased in 1970s with creation of new companies and large capital investments in transportation, communications, and energy infrastructure. New technologically sophisticated industries begun in that decade included weapons, aircraft, and computer manufacturing and nuclear power production. Industrial growth slowed by economic crisis of 1980s. After start of Real Plan, industrial production increased vigorously by 7.5 percent from 1993 to 1994. Manufacturing accounted for 62 percent of exports in 1996. Industrial growth in 1997 was 3.9 percent.

Industry of Brazil

Energy: 94 percent of current energy capacity hydroelectric. Electricity consumption expanded by 7.6 percent in 1995 (versus 4.2 percent for GDP) and by 5.7 percent in first half of 1996 (versus projected GDP growth rate of 3 percent). A dozen hydroelectric and thermal plants being privatized because electricity demand expected to outstrip supply by 1999, and state unable to pay off energy-sector debts. A blackout in April 1997 affecting 20 million people expected to become an increasingly common occurrence. Predominance of highland rivers presents great potential for hydroelectric power pro-duction. Hydropower generating potential: 106,500 to 129,046 megawatts/year, of which 24.4 percent in operation or under construction, 35.8 percent inventoried, and 39.8 percent esti-mated (1994 estimate). In 1992, of 233,682 gigawatt-hours generated, 217,782 hydroelectric, 14,454 thermal, and 1,446 nuclear. Nuclear power generation in early 1998 was still negligible. About 60 percent of energy supply derived from renewable sources, such as hydroelectricity and ethanol. National oil production surpassed a record 840,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 1997. Petroleum imports in 1995: 760,000 bpd (442,000 bpd crude; 318,000 bpd derivatives). Brazil relies on natural gas for only 2 percent of energy needs. Produced more than 17 million cubic meters of natural gas per day in early 1990s.
Services: In 1994 services accounted for approximately 43.6 percent of work force.
Trade Balance: Total trade in 1997: US$109.4 billion, com-pared with US$77.3 billion in 1994. In ten years, 1985-95, foreign trade of Brazil accounted for US$521.8 billion, with surplus of US$129.3 billion. Foreign trade deficit in 1997: US$10.9 billion.
Imports: Totaled US$60.1 billion in 1997, as compared with US$20.5 billion in 1993. Average import duties dropped to 14 percent from 51 percent since 1988. Major suppliers in 1996: United States, 22.2 percent; Germany, 9.0 percent; Argentina, 12.7 percent; and Japan, 5.2 percent. Half of Brazil's imports of manufactured goods come from United States. Brazil only other major Latin American country besides Chile to import oil, which in 1996 cost an estimated US$6.4 billion.
Exports: Totaled US$49.2 billion in 1997, as compared with US$39.6 billion in 1993. Brazil's strengthened currency has made its exports less competitive. Brazil exports large part of world's production of tin, iron, manganese, and steel. Also one of world's largest exporters of food, mainly sugar, coffee, cocoa, soybeans, and orange juice. Major markets in 1996: United States, 19.5 percent; Argentina, 10.8 percent; Japan, 6.4 percent; and the Netherlands, 7.4 percent.
Tariffs: Average tariff rate: 14.0 percent; tariff ceiling: 70 percent on automobiles (imposed in mid-1995).

Ethanol exports in Brazil

Reserves: International reserves in first quarter of 1998: US$63 billion.
Budget Deficit: Current account deficit in 1997: US$32.3 billion. EIU's current account deficit estimate for 1998: US$33.6 billion.
Internal Debt: Total debt of public sector (federal, state, and municipal governments): US$77 billion (1994). Totaled record US$213 billion (36.8 percent of GDP) in 1995, according to official figures, or US$267 billion (46 percent of GDP), if some unregistered existing debts included. IBGE calculated total domestic debt to be R$304.8 billion in September 1995, or 60.9 percent of estimated 1995 GNP. Public Sector Borrowing Requirement reached 5.6 percent of GDP in 1996, as compared with 5.1 percent in 1995.
External Debt: US$177.6 billion (public and private) in 1997; US$193.2 billion estimated by EIU for 1998. Total debt service: US$15 billion (1996). Debt-service ratio: 58.7 percent (1997).
Official Exchange Rate: On July 1, 1994, new currency, the real (pl., reais), introduced. As of January 31, 1996, government widened to 7.07 percent range within which value vis-à-vis United States dollar may vary. Exchange rate on April 13, 1998: R$1.140=US$1.
Foreign Investment: US$52 billion in 1996, US$38 billion in 1995, and US$25 billion in 1994.
Fiscal Year: Calendar year.
Fiscal Policy: Stabilization program in 1994-96 developed originally by Fernando Henrique Cardoso (president, 1995- ) as minister of finance (May 1993 to April 1994). End of inflation in 1994 quickly increased demand and spending power of poorer Brazilians especially. Government endeavoring to dampen inflationary pressures. In order to consolidate stabilization program and put Brazil on path to long-term sustainable growth, government must implement wide-ranging structural reforms. Restrictive monetary policy has kept interest rates high and reduced aggregate demand and inflation, while improving trade balance. Fiscal position deteriorated considerably in 1995. Expansion of internal public debt a major threat to government's control over fiscal and monetary policy. Monetary policy somewhat more flexible since August 1995 because of lower level of economic activity, declining inflation rate, and abundance of foreign capital to finance current account.

Exchange Rates and Foreign Trade

The single most important policy tool for influencing Brazil's balance of payments is the exchange rate. Brazilian exchange-rate policy has evolved over the past several decades. Policy makers and Brazilian exporters believed that trade flows in the 1960s and 1970s were most effectively managed through trade policies such as tariffs (see Glossary), import controls, or export incentives. Beginning in the 1980s, they began to recognize that balance of payments adjustments may be more efficiently pursued using the exchange rate, rather than tariffs, subsidies, and direct controls on trade. This evolution in thinking reflects in part the increasing skepticism among many Brazilians, both economists and policy makers, about the government's ability to maintain external balance using trade policy without creating severe economic distortions.
Even more important, however, was the exchange-rate experience of the early 1980s. Following the onset of Mexico's debt crisis in 1982 and the resulting inability of Brazil to continue to finance its current-account deficit through external borrowing, the cruzeiro was devalued sharply against the dollar in February 1983. Unlike the earlier "maxidevaluation" of December 1979, which was soon undermined by rapid increases in internal cruzeiro prices, the real depreciation of the cruzeiro resulting from the 1983 adjustment was maintained for the next several years. Exports increased substantially in 1983 and 1984, and the value of imports fell by over US$5 billion between 1982 and 1984. Although some of this decline resulted from the fall in petroleum prices from their record levels in 1981, the response of the trade deficit to the large and sustained real depreciation of the cruzeiro provided clear evidence that Brazil's external adjustment problem could be addressed through exchange-rate policy. The experience of the early 1980s, in fact, led to the recognition that Brazil's real problem was not the private sector's lack of response to the exchange rate, but the inability of the domestic economy, particularly the public sector, to generate the net saving that is the counterpart of a current-account surplus.
Brazil's success in moving the current account into surplus after 1982 implied a corresponding adjustment in either net private saving (private saving minus private investment) or in public-sector saving (tax receipts and other public revenues minus public expenditures). Because net public-sector saving actually deteriorated in the 1980s, the burden of adjustment fell on the private sector, particularly on investment. The dramatic fall in investment after 1982 had important consequences for Brazilian competitiveness and hence for the potential benefits that Brazil would derive from trade reform.

Brazil cotton statistic

Thus, the experience of the early 1980s suggests that the Brazilian economy had responded to real exchange rates that facilitated external adjustment, but the policy also reduced domestic private investment and future economic growth. In retrospect, the delay among policy makers in using the exchange rate as the primary tool for achieving external balance is surprising. Their approach may have been influenced in part, however, by the success of the "crawling-peg" policy instituted in August 1968. This policy consisted of small but frequent adjustments in the nominal exchange rate in line with Brazilian inflation and price changes in Brazil's major trade partners, primarily the United States. It ushered in a long period of real exchange-rate stability, broken only a decade later by the December 1979 devaluation. The crawling-peg policy was a marked improvement over the earlier exchange-rate regime, in which the combination of domestic inflation and a nominal exchange rate fixed for long periods of time resulted in large fluctuations and uncertainty about the real exchange rate. The real rate may in fact have been too stable, however, leading Brazil to delay the appropriate exchange-rate response to the external shocks of the 1970s.
A rise in the real exchange rate represents an increase in Brazilian price competitiveness in international markets. Such an increase in price competitiveness could be caused by a depreciation of the cruzeiro against the dollar, a rise in United States prices, or a fall in Brazilian prices. A slowing of inflation in the 1970s made Brazil more competitive, while the rapid acceleration of inflation in the second half of the 1980s substantially eroded Brazil's price competitiveness. Unlike other episodes in which the actual effects of a devaluation were rapidly undercut by Brazilian inflation, the 1983 real devaluation was maintained through frequent adjustments in the nominal exchange rate, sufficient to maintain Brazil's price competitiveness in international markets until the 1986 Cruzado Plan froze the nominal exchange rate.
A number of implications for Brazil's balance of payments policy are clear from exchange-rate trends and movements in the current account. First, by the 1980s it was clear that Brazilian trade flows were strongly responsive to the real exchange rate. If "elasticity pessimism," which hypothesizes that trade responses to relative prices are low, was ever justified in the Brazilian case, those days were long past. Since the late 1960s, Brazil has ceased to be a developing country in terms of its trade flows. Traditional primary products, such as coffee, cocoa, or sugar, in recent years have accounted for less than a third of the value of Brazilian exports. The increasing importance of manufactured exports, as well as the variety of local import substitutes, makes Brazil's trade balance responsive to real exchange-rate changes. This responsiveness removes one of the traditional justifications for extensive tariff and import restriction policies and for administrative intervention in trade to attain external balance. The evidence of the past several decades suggests that Brazil can attain external balance without extensive market intervention, however harsh the domestic effects of external adjustment.
Second, the introduction of a degree of indexation of the nominal exchange rate in the form of the crawling-peg policy has permitted the external sector to avoid some of the consequences of domestic inflation that would otherwise have produced much more severe external payments crises. Real exchange rates remained relatively stable for a decade after the policy's introduction in 1968. Unlike several other Latin American countries such as Argentina, Brazil avoided the sharp swings in the real exchange rate resulting from domestic inflation and infrequent adjustment of the nominal rate. When Brazil departed from this pattern, as it did in 1986 during the Cruzado Plan, policy makers soon learned that this was a mistake. Subsequent stabilization plans, even if they were failures for other reasons, at least did not succumb to the temptation to use the exchange rate as an anti-inflationary weapon.
Finally, and perhaps more negatively, Brazilian exchange-rate policy transformed Brazil's external adjustment problems of the early 1980s into more intractable domestic balance problems in the early 1990s. Contrary to the initial expectations of many observers, Brazil was able to solve its external balance problem after the 1982 debt crisis with surprising speed. The cost was a sharp increase in the demand for domestic saving to replace lost foreign capital inflows. With little increase in net public-sector saving or in private-sector gross saving, investment fell substantially, undercutting the growth of the Brazilian capital stock and the economy's potential growth in competitiveness.

Capital Flows and the External Debt

Much of Brazil's economic experience in the past two decades has been dominated by large capital inflows that attained record levels in the 1970s, only to collapse after 1983 in the wake of the Mexican debt crisis. For the rest of the decade, Brazil coped with the consequences of this collapse, and only in the 1990s did capital again begin to flow into the Brazilian economy, with a substantial increase after the Real Plan.
The enormous inflow of external capital to Brazil that ended in 1982 had its roots in a number of policies and institutional changes in the preceding two decades. The military government that seized power in April 1964 quickly reformed existing laws governing direct foreign investments, including liberalizing restrictions on remittances of profits and simplifying procedures for reinvestment of profits. The changes did not address the effects of inflation in the currency of the lending country, however, so that the real returns on a direct investment were affected negatively by inflation in dollar prices. The negative effect of dollar inflation on a direct foreign investment in Brazil arose because the original investment was registered in a fixed dollar amount, on which allowances for profits and remittances were calculated. A million-dollar investment in 1964, for example, would still be registered as a million-dollar investment in 1974. Higher nominal dollar profits in 1974 would then result in a substantially higher nominal profit rate and a heftier Brazilian tax, thus lowering the real return.

Foreign Trade of Brazil

Financial lending to Brazil was different because the interest rate on the loan, usually denominated in dollars, incorporated the market's expectations of inflation. The asymmetrical treatment of financial capital flows and direct investment was one of the reasons total capital flows to Brazil in the post-1964 period were dominated by bank lending, which at times was ten times as great as foreign direct investment.
Among the other changes that encouraged large financial capital flows to Brazil was Law 4,131, which allowed final borrowers to deal directly with foreign lenders after approval by the Central Bank of Brazil (Banco Central do Brasil--Bacen; see Glossary). Another vehicle for capital flows was Resolution 63, which permitted Brazilian banks and authorized subsidiaries of foreign banks to obtain dollar loans abroad and reloan the proceeds to one or more domestic borrowers. Finally, the increasing participation of the Brazilian government as a borrower itself, backed by explicit "full faith and credit" guarantees and by the implicit assumption that taxes could be levied to pay for loans to the government, made lending to Brazil an increasingly attractive option for foreign banks.
Equally important in explaining the sharp rise in financial lending to Brazil after the mid-1960s were changes in international financial markets. International banks began to negotiate variable interest rate loans, in which the borrower and the lender agreed to reset the loan's interest rate at specified intervals, usually six months, on the basis of a rate that neither the borrower nor lender controlled (usually the London Interbank Offered Rate--LIBOR), or the United States prime rate. Added to this underlying rate was a "spread," or premium charged to borrowers like Brazil, based on the market's assessment of any additional risk compared with the risks associated with prime borrowers. Finally, the rise in syndicated bank lending, in which one "lead" bank organized the loan and then sold portions of it to other international lenders, permitted banks to expand substantially their loans to borrowers like Brazil.
Together, these innovations cleared the way for lending on a scale that was unprecedented in Brazil's history and with few parallels elsewhere in the world. Because the loans were denominated in the creditor country's currency, they were isolated effectively from inflation in cruzeiro prices. As long as the value of Brazil's export revenues grew at rates exceeding the interest rates charged on the loans, an assumption that appeared valid throughout the 1970s, the burden of the external debt in relation to Brazil's capacity to repay it would fall.
Although it is easy from the vantage point of the 1990s to criticize the volume and terms of much of the bank lending to Brazil, at the time it appeared to be an extremely attractive option for a borrower like Brazil. When inflation in the currencies of the lending countries is subtracted from the rates charged on loans to Brazil, real interest rates on these loans in the 1970s were negligible and often negative. The nominal and real interest rates in the markets in which Brazilian external borrowing occurred do not include the spread paid by Brazil, which during the 1970s and early 1980s was generally between 1 percent and 2 percent. Nevertheless, these rates do show clearly why foreign borrowing appeared to be such an attractive option for Brazil.
The debt crisis that began in Mexico in August 1982 had an almost immediate impact on the ability of other Latin American borrowers to maintain capital inflows. Even though Brazil's trade balance and current account had improved slightly in 1981, loans from international lenders became increasingly scarce. Interest on new loans increased, and most lenders refused to roll over on existing loans. New lending dried up in the second half of 1982, reducing capital inflows, which had reached a peak in 1981, by more than a third. Private borrowers in Brazil encountered a total cutoff of loans from foreign lenders, while official borrowing dropped sharply. By 1984 net capital inflows (public and private) were negligible by comparison with earlier years, and by 1986 the country was experiencing a net capital outflow of US$7.3 billion, a sum nearly equal to Brazil's trade balance. The principal components of Brazil's balance of payments show this sharp drop in the net inflow of foreign capital after 1982.
The 1982 crisis interrupted for many years private Brazilian external borrowing. Private loans contracted under Law 4,131 had leveled off in the late 1970s, and after 1982 net private borrowing under this law became negative. The fall in private borrowing under Resolution 63 was even more pronounced. After a rapid rise in such borrowing between 1979 and the 1982 debt crisis, this source of financing virtually collapsed, as the level of outstanding Resolution 63 debt was more than cut in half between 1982 and the end of 1987.
Part, if not all, of the increase in external debt reported by the Central Bank after 1982 was simply forced lending to finance interest payments. It did not have a real counterpart in the form of new resources entering the country through the capital account. As a result, Brazil's ability to tap external saving to finance either public-sector borrowing or private-sector investment collapsed after 1982.
A number of Brazilian economists have made the point that before 1982 net capital inflows more than covered service payments (net interest, profits and dividends, and reinvested profits). After 1982 interest payments alone far exceeded net capital inflows, which turned negative after 1985. Although 1982 is usually viewed as the turning point, the net capital transfer from the rest of the world actually began to decline in the mid-1970s. Brazil was only able to avoid an external payments crisis in the late 1970s because lenders were willing to finance debt service through further lending. After the Mexican debt crisis in 1982, Brazil's own crisis could no longer be postponed.
The 1986 Cruzado Plan exacerbated capital outflows. Real exchange-rate overvaluation, with increasing expectations of a future adjustment, was one factor. A second factor was the increase in uncertainty about future fiscal and monetary policy, as the shortages and informal markets produced by the price controls undercut the euphoria of the first few months.
During the rest of the 1980s, net capital outflow continued, further reducing Brazil's capacity to finance investments needed for future economic growth. In real terms, however, the external debt began to decline in the late 1980s, both as a result of debt renegotiation and a marking down of some of the debt by public and private lenders. Despite temporary interruptions in debt servicing, domestic political pressures in Brazil for a permanent repudiation of the external debt were rejected. As interest rates in international financial markets declined substantially in the early 1990s, the costs of servicing the remaining external debt were reduced further.
Although the debt crisis that exploded in Brazil in the early 1980s had not disappeared a decade later, it was no longer regarded as Brazil's central economic problem. Its effects, however, lingered on in several forms. First, the steep fall in the availability of international reserves after 1982 sharply curtailed Brazilian investment. The resulting decline in capital formation was evident a decade later, as Brazilians faced the consequence of lower levels of investment in plant, equipment, and essential infrastructure. Second, international confidence in the financial soundness of external lending to Brazil remained low. When foreign capital began to return to Brazil in the early 1990s, it took a rather different form from the capital inflows of the 1970s. Foreign capital inflows to Brazil in the early 1990s were smaller and were no longer dominated by loans from international banks. Instead, foreign lenders sought equity investments in Brazilian enterprises. Foreign firms with the capacity to manage direct investments in Brazil began to replace commercial banks as the primary source of foreign capital.

Foreign Relations

The Foreign Service

Chart of foreign business of Brazil

 

The Rio Branco Institute (Instituto Rio Branco--IRBr) recruits from twenty to thirty candidates each year among college graduates. After four semesters of intensive study of language and diplomacy, graduates receive a certified bachelor of arts degree in diplomacy and begin their careers as third secretaries. In 1996 the IRBr began studies to upgrade the course to an M.A. program. The IRBr teaching staff is composed of senior diplomats and some academics from the University of Brasília (Universidade de Brasília). Some foreign students are admitted, mostly from Latin America and Africa.
After three or four years experience within several divisions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (known as Itamaraty, after the building it formerly occupied in Rio de Janeiro), the junior diplomat is posted overseas. Promotion to second and first secretary is by merit (evaluation by immediate superiors). Before promotion to minister second class, the diplomat goes through a mid-career course and produces a monograph, which is defended before an examining board. Many diplomats also acquire graduate degrees during their career. Promotion to the final positions of counselor (minister first class) and ambassador involves a combination of merit and political considerations; the president makes the final decision. Because Itamaraty has more diplomats than posts overseas and in Brasília, diplomats frequently fill key positions in other ministries, state enterprises, and the president's office. Brazilian diplomats generally are considered skilled and patient negotiators by their peers.

Trade in Portugal

Portugal

Mosjeed of Portugal

 

Formal Name: Portuguese Republic.
Short Form: Portugal.
Term for Citizen(s): Portuguese (singular and plural); adjective--Portuguese.
Capital: Lisbon (Portuguese, Lisboa).
Geography: 92,080 square kilometers; land area: 91,640 square kilometers; includes Azores (Portuguese, Açores) and Madeira Islands.
Topography: Hills and mountains north of Rio Tejo; rolling plains to south.
Climate: Varied with considerable rainfall and marked seasonal temperatures in north; dryer conditions in south with mild temperatures along coast but sometimes in low 40°Cs in interior.

Portugal in map

Economy

Gross Domestic Product (GDP): purchasing power equivalent--estimated at US$87.3 in 1991 (US$8,400 per capita). Economy stagnant during second half of 1970s and first half of 1980s because of world economic slump and extensive nationalizations during revolution of mid-1970s. Between 1986 and 1990, GDP grew at 4.6 percent each year.
Agriculture: Made up 6.2 percent of GDP and employed about 17.8 percent of labor force in 1990. Small farms in north, larger farms in the south; productivity and mechanization below European Community levels; imports more than half of food needs. Major crops: grain, corn, rice potatoes, olives, grapes, cork; important livestock: pigs, cattle, sheep, and chickens; dairy farms mostly in north. EC membership threated long-term servival of southern grain-growing and cattle-raising farms; farms producing rice, vegetables, and wine likely to fare well.
Industry: 38.4 percent of GDP in 1990. Concentrated in two regions: Lisbon-Setúbal, much heavy industry (steel, ship building, oil refineries, chemicals); and Porto-Aveiro-Braga, mostly light industry (textiles, footwear, wine, food processing). Ownership of industries varies: light industry usually privately owned; heavy industry often state owned; high technology manufacturing often foreign owned.
Services: 55.5 percent of GDP in 1990; accounted for 47 percent of work force. Tourism important component of service sector; 19.6 million visitors in 1991.
Imports: In 1990 imports of goods and services accounted for about 47 percent of GDP. Manufactured goods (machinery, transport equipment, chemicals) accounted for about 75 percent of merchandise imports, food and beverages for about 10 percent, and raw materials (mostly petroleum) for about 16 percent.

Export value of Portugal

Exports: in 1990 exports of goods and services accounted for about 37 percent of GDP. Manufactured goods accounted for 80 percent of merchandise exports in 1989. In 1990 textiles, clothing, and footwear made up 37 of total export value; machinery and transport equipment, 20 percent; forest products, 14 percent; and agricultural products, 8 percent.
Major Trade Partners: EC major trading partner, buying 74 percent of Portugal's exports in 1990, and supplying 69 percent of its imports. Germany and Spain the most important trading partners. Only 3.4 percent of Portugal's imports in 1990 came from the United States; Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) accounted for less than 7 percent.
Balance of Payments: Despite negative trade balences, large earnings from tourism and remittances from Portuguese living abroad, in addition to direct foreign investment and EC tranfers, resulted in generally favorable balances of payments (US$4.6 billion in 1989, US$3.5 billion in 1990).
Exchange Rate: in March 1992, 143.09 escudos per US$1.
Fiscal Year: Calendar year.

The Economy of the Salazar Regime

The First Republic was ended by a military coup in May 1926, but the newly installed government failed to solve the nation's precarious financial situation. Instead, President Óscar Fragoso Carmona invited António de Oliveira Salazar to head the Ministry of Finance, and the latter agreed to accept the position provided he would have veto power over all fiscal expenditures. At the time of his appointment as minister of finance in 1928, Salazar held the Chair of Economics at the University of Coimbra and was considered by his peers to be Portugal's most distinguished authority on inflation. For forty years, first as minister of finance (1928-32) and then as prime minister (1932-68), Salazar's political and economic doctrines were to shape the Portuguese destiny.
From the perspective of the financial chaos of the republican period, it was not surprising that Salazar considered the principles of a balanced budget and monetary stability as categorical imperatives. By restoring equilibrium both in the fiscal budget and in the balance of international payments, Salazar succeeded in restoring Portugal's credit worthiness at home and abroad. Because Portugal's fiscal accounts from the 1930s until the early 1960s almost always had a surplus in the current account, the state had the wherewithal to finance public infrastructure projects without resorting either to inflationary financing or to borrowing abroad.

Commercial Trade

At the bottom of the Great Depression, Premier Salazar laid the foundations for his Estado Novo, the "New State." Neither capitalist nor communist, Portugal's economy was cast into a quasi-traditional mold. The corporative framework within which the Portuguese economy evolved combined two salient characteristics: extensive state regulation and predominantly private ownership of the means of production. Leading financiers and industrialists accepted extensive bureaucratic controls in return for assurances of minimal public ownership of economic enterprises and certain monopolistic (or restricted-competition) privileges.
Within this framework, the state exercised extensive de facto authority regarding private investment decisions and the level of wages. A system of industrial licensing (condicionamento industrial), introduced by law in 1931, required prior authorization from the state for setting up or relocating an industrial plant. Investment in machinery and equipment designed to increase the capacity of an existing firm also required government approval. Although the political system was ostensibly corporatist, as political scientist Howard J. Wiarda makes clear, "In reality both labor and capital--and indeed the entire corporate institutional network--were subordinate to the central state apparatus."
Under the old regime, Portugal's private sector was dominated by some forty great families. These industrial dynasties were allied by marriage with the large, traditional landowning families of the nobility, who held most of the arable land in the southern part of the country in great estates. Many of these dynasties had business interests in Portuguese Africa. Within this elite group, the top ten families owned all the important commercial banks, which in turn controlled a disproportionate share of the national economy. Because bank officials were often members of the boards of directors of borrowing firms in whose stock the banks participated, the influence of the large banks extended to a host of commercial, industrial, and service enterprises.
Portugal's shift toward a moderately outward-looking trade and financial strategy, initiated in the late 1950s, gained momentum during the early 1960s. A growing number of industrialists, as well as government technocrats, favored greater Portuguese integration with the industrial countries to the north as a badly needed stimulus to Portugal's economy. The rising influence of the Europe-oriented technocrats within Salazar's cabinet was confirmed by the substantial increase in the foreign investment component in projected capital formation between the first (1953-58) and second (1959-64) economic development plans. The first plan called for a foreign investment component of less than 6 percent, but the plan for the 1959-64 period envisioned a 25-percent contribution. The newly influential Europe-oriented industrial and technical groups persuaded Salazar that Portugal should become a charter member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) when it was organized in 1959. In the following year, Portugal also added its membership in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank.
In 1958 when the Portuguese government announced the 1959-64 Six-Year Plan for National Development, a decision had been reached to accelerate the country's rate of economic growth--a decision whose urgency grew with the outbreak of guerrilla warfare in Angola in 1961 and in Portugal's other African territories thereafter. Salazar and his policy advisers recognized that additional claims by the state on national output for military expenditures, as well as for increased transfers of official investment to the "overseas provinces," could only be met by a sharp rise in the country's productive capacity. Salazar's commitment to preserving Portugal's "multiracial, pluricontinental" state led him reluctantly to seek external credits beginning in 1962, an action from which the Portuguese treasury had abstained for several decades.

Chief export markets

Beyond military measures, the official Portuguese response to the "winds of change" in the African colonies was to integrate them administratively and economically more closely with Portugal through population and capital transfers, trade liberalization, and the creation of a common currency--the so-called Escudo Area. The integration program established in 1961 provided for the removal of Portugal's duties on imports from its overseas territories by January 1964. The latter, on the other hand, were permitted to continue to levy duties on goods imported from Portugal but at a preferential rate, in most cases 50 percent of the normal duties levied by the territories on goods originating outside the Escudo Area. The effect of this two-tier tariff system was to give Portugal's exports preferential access to its colonial markets.
Despite the opposition of protectionist interests, the Portuguese government succeeded in bringing about some liberalization of the industrial licensing system, as well as in reducing trade barriers to conform with EFTA and GATT agreements. The last years of the Salazar era witnessed the creation of important privately organized ventures, including an integrated iron and steel mill, a modern ship repair and shipbuilding complex, vehicle assembly plants, oil refineries, petrochemical plants, pulp and paper mills, and electronic plants. As economist Valentina Xavier Pintado observed, "Behind the facade of an aged Salazar, Portugal knew deep and lasting changes during the 1960s."
The liberalization of the Portuguese economy continued under Salazar's successor, Prime Minister Marcello José das Neves Caetano (1968-74), whose administration abolished industrial licensing requirements for firms in most sectors and in 1972 signed a free trade agreement with the newly enlarged EC. Under the agreement, which took effect at the beginning of 1973, Portugal was given until 1980 to abolish its restrictions on most community goods and until 1985 on certain sensitive products amounting to some 10 percent of the EC's total exports to Portugal. EFTA membership and a growing foreign investor presence contributed to Portugal's industrial modernization and export diversification between 1960 and 1973.
Notwithstanding the concentration of the means of production in the hands of a small number of family-based financial-industrial groups, Portuguese business culture permitted a surprising upward mobility of university-educated individuals with middle-class backgrounds into professional management careers. Before the revolution, the largest, most technologically advanced (and most recently organized) firms offered the greatest opportunity for management careers based on merit rather than on accident of birth.

FOREIGN ECONOMIC RELATIONS

After becoming a charter member of EFTA in 1959, Portugal became increasingly open to the rest of the world through international trade and other payment flows. In 1990 exports of goods and services accounted for about 37 percent of Portugal's GDP, and imports of goods and services represented about 47 percent of GDP. The accession of Portugal to the EC on January 1, 1986 required fundamental changes in the country's commercial and foreign investment policies. A seven-year transition period ending in 1993 would eliminate most barriers to trade, capital flows, and labor mobility among the twelve EC member countries. During this period, Portugal was a net recipient of EC financial transfers to help modernize its agricultural and industrial sectors for competition in the single market.

Portugal Current Account Deficit

To rein in domestic demand growth--mainly the result of the public sector deficits after 1973--the Portuguese government was obliged to pursue IMF-monitored stabilization programs in 1977-78 and 1983-84 to help achieve a return to current account equilibrium in the balance of international payments. Building on the 1983-85 stabilization program and in the context of Portugal's accession to the EC, the Council of Ministers introduced in March 1987 the Program for the Structural Adjustment of the Foreign Deficit and Unemployment (Plano de Correcção Estrutural do Déficit Externo e Desemprêgo--PCEDED), a medium-term program aimed at a lasting correction of structural imbalances--inflation, fiscal deficit, external deficit, and unemployment. The program's macroeconomic approach included a set of articulated measures involving fiscal, monetary, exchange, and incomes policy. As an instrument of the government's "controlled development strategy," this program was to be implemented in two stages covering the periods 1987-90 and 1991-94 and was designed to reduce Portugal's susceptibility to external shocks by strengthening especially the energy and agricultural sectors.

Composition and Direction of Trade

Portugal's rising share of manufactured goods in total merchandise exports, which reached 80 percent in 1989, was indicative of the country's newly industrialized status. Between 1980 and 1988, exports of manufactured goods increased by 10 percent per year by volume, which was double the rate of its European neighbors, and Portugal gained market share. The country's major commodity exports in 1990 included textiles, clothing, and footwear (accounting for 37 percent of total export value); machinery and transport equipment (20 percent); forest products (10 percent, including pulp and paper and cork products); agricultural products (8 percent, mainly wine and tomato paste); chemicals and plastic products (5 percent); and energy products (about 4 percent). Portugal's comparative advantage appeared to lie with high forestry resources content (wood and cork products, including pulp and paper) and labor-intensive products (textiles, clothing, and footwear). With the participation of multinational firms, Portugal was also gaining competitive strength in the export of automobiles and automotive components and electrical and electronic machinery.

Consumer oriented Exports to portugal

When compared with the other EC member countries and the United States, Portugal had a strong competitive advantage because of its low wage scale. As an example, 1989 hourly labor costs in Portuguese manufacturing (in United States dollars) averaged approximately half those of Greece (a country with a similar per capita GDP), a third those of Spain, and about a fifth of most other West European countries and the United States.
Manufactured goods (notably machinery, transportation equipment, and chemicals) accounted for about 75 percent of merchandise imports in 1989, food and beverages for about 10 percent, and raw materials (mainly crude petroleum) for about 16 percent. Portugal imported about 60 million barrels of oil yearly during the late 1980s, but the share of crude petroleum varied between 8 and 20 percent of total imports depending on fluctuations in world oil prices.
Portugal's commodity trade was increasingly dominated by the EC. In 1990 the EC member countries purchased nearly 74 percent of Portugal's exports and supplied over 69 percent of its imports; in 1985, the year prior to Portugal's membership in the EC, the EC member counties purchased about 63 percent of Portugal's exports and supplied nearly 46 percent of Portugal's imports. Within the EC, the former West Germany, France, and Britain were Portugal's leading trading partners. But after the accession of both Iberian countries to the EC in 1986 (and the dismantling of trade restrictions between them), Spain suddenly emerged as a significant trading partner, taking over 13 percent of Portugal's exports in 1990 and providing 14.4 percent of the latter's imports. Thus, Spain ranked with West Germany as Portugal's premier national supplier in 1990, ahead of France, Britain, and Italy.
The relative position of the United States in Portugal's import trade declined sharply from nearly 10 percent of the total in 1985 to 3.9 percent in 1990. Because Portugal heavily imported grain, soybeans, and animal feedstuffs, its adoption of the CAP led to costly trade diversion from former, more efficient sources, mainly the United States, to higher-cost continental EC member countries. On the other hand, Portugal's full membership in the EC would permit its manufacturers to capture a larger share of exports to EC member countries at the expense of lower-cost exporters from Latin America and East Asia; similarly, Portuguese producers of quality wine were expected to gain market share at the expense of wine producers in Southern Mediterranean countries that were not fully integrated into the EC. In both these cases, trade diversion would favor Portuguese entrepreneurs.
Portugal's trade with the previous Escudo Area (its former African colonies) had fallen sharply since the revolution. Still, a restructured Angola under a competent, non-Marxist regime could once more offer Portugal significant opportunities for two-way trade in the late 1990s. The share of Portuguese imports supplied by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which amounted to over 17 percent in 1985 (the year before the collapse of world oil prices), shrank to below 7 percent in 1990.

Tourism and Unilateral Transfers

Measured in terms of arrivals and foreign exchange receipts, Portuguese tourism had grown at a phenomenal rate since the early 1980s. Foreign arrivals, which averaged about 7.3 million in 1981-1982, expanded sharply each year thereafter, stabilized at between 16 and 17 million during 1987-89, and then increased to an estimated 18.4 million in 1990. Receipts from tourism rose from US$1.15 billion in 1980 to US$3.58 billion in 1990.

Portugal loss

In 1990 unilateral transfers reached US$6.5 billion (22 percent of Portugal's current account receipts), of which 73 percent were private, mainly emigrant remittances. About three-fourths of the emigrant remittances originated in Western Europe (mainly France) and one-fifth in North America (mainly the United States). These private inflows not only contributed to the country's foreign exchange earnings, but also represented a significant component of Portuguese household savings.
Gross public transfers in favor of Portugal amounted to US$1,740 million in 1990, of which nearly half (US$837 million) represented structural funds from the EC in support of the country's economic and social modernization. The European Social Fund assisted in vocational and professional training; other funds participated in the Specific Plan for the Development of Portuguese Agriculture (Plano Económico para o Desenvolvimento da Agriculltura Portuguêsa--PEDAP) and the Specific Plan for the Development of Portuguese Industry (Plano Económico para o Desenvolvimento da Indústria Portuguêsa--PEDIP). The Portuguese government was required to cofinance projects funded by these EC transfers. Although Portugal no longer was a member of EFTA, the latter continued to assist the former member country in its economic restructuring efforts. Finally, included in the category of official unilateral transfers were United States government military and economic grants that totaled some US$160 million annually for the use of the large United States Air Force base in the Azores.

Foreign Direct Investment

Foreign direct investment increased at an extraordinary pace after Portugal's accession to the EC. From a modest commitment of around US$166 million in 1986, the annual inflow of investment controlled and managed by foreigners rose sharply in the following years, reaching US$2.7 billion in 1991. At the end of that year, the accumulated stock of direct foreign investment exceeded US$8 billion, or eight times its value at the end of 1986.
From the perspective of multinational firms, Portugal was a strong export base to the emerging single market of 327 million high-income consumers, and since the mid-1980s the country had become especially competitive in attracting foreign investment. These attractions included political stability and a hospitable investment climate that included EC investment subsidies, the lowest wage scale among the EC-12, and programs of economic deregulation and privatization, as well as robust national economic and export growth.

Sliding Euro

The participation of EC-based investors in the annual investment flow to Portugal increased from less than half of the total in 1985-86 to about 70 percent from 1987 to 1990, Britain being the principal country source. Interesting trends in the composition of this investment could be discerned. Britain was the leading country of origin throughout this period, but the United States share fell sharply from 18 percent of the total investment in 1985-86 to less than 3 percent in 1989-90. Within the recently enlarged EC, Spain emerged as a significant direct investor, increasing its share from only 3 percent of Portuguese new investment in 1985-1986 to over 13 percent in 1989-90. Brazilian investors, whose share was negligible in 1985-86, increased their participation to around 7 percent in 1989-90.
Manufacturing, the destination of just under half of foreign investment inflow in 1985-86, received only 27 percent of the total in 1988-89; by contrast, the services sector's share in total investment flow rose from 45 percent in 1985-86 to over 60 percent in 1988-89. Within that sector, banking and insurance increased their participation, although investment in wholesale and retail trade and in hotels and restaurants continued to be significant, reflecting foreign investor participation in Portugal's booming tourism industry. Several new investment projects in the automotive industry were being considered in the spring of 1991, including participation by Japanese and South Korean firms. None, however, approached in scale the Ford-Volkswagen commitment to organize an automotive complex at Sines. This joint venture capitalized at US$3.2 billion was to manufacture a new European minivan.
Portugal, unlike many other middle-income countries, was remarkably hospitable to foreign investment (foreign-owned enterprises were legally exempted from nationalization during 1975-76). The growing pace of privatization since 1988, however, gave rise to debate regarding the ultimate ownership and control of major state firms being divested. One school of thought anticipated that privatization would "de-Portugalize" vital sectors of the economy. To some degree, Prime Minister Cavaco Silva shared this anxiety: "At the same time, we shall have to foster economic groups in Portugal. These were destroyed at the time of the revolution with nationalization. We need them, as otherwise foreigners will come in and take over our enterprises and economic strategy will be determined from abroad. Thus we are supporting the new entrepreneurs in industry and agriculture."
Despite the formation of new Portuguese groups able to compete against foreign-based multinational companies, it was doubtful that these national firms were sufficient in number, risk capital, and managerial-technical know-how to absorb most of the large enterprises scheduled for divestiture.
Although the government had succeeded in limiting foreign participation in a number of key enterprises, including the withholding of a temporary "golden share" for the state, such limits on foreign direct investment were to become illegal in 1995, when Portugal's capital movement regulations would come fully into compliance with those of the rest of the EC members.
Consequently, the prospect of losing national control over large branches of the economy appeared to be the inevitable price of securing Portugal's economic future and closing the income gap between the Portuguese and their more prosperous neighbors.

Trade in Indonesia

Indonesia

Beautiful Mosjid of Indonesia

 

Formal Name: Republic of Indonesia (Republik Indonesia; Indonesia coined from Greek indos--India--and nesos--island).
Short Form: Indonesia.
Term for Citizens: Indonesian(s).
Capital: Jakarta (Special Capital City Region of Jakarta).
Date of Independence: Proclaimed August 17, 1945, from the Netherlands. The Hague recognized Indonesian sovereignty on December 27, 1949.
National Holiday: Independence Day, August 17.

GEOGRAPHY

Indonesia in Map

 

Size: Total land area 1,919,317 square kilometers, which includes some 93,000 square kilometers of inland seas. Total area claimed, including an exclusive economic zone, 7.9 million square kilometers.
Topography: Archipelagic nation with 13,667 islands, five main islands (Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Irian Jaya), two major archipelagos (Nusa Tenggara and Maluku Islands), and sixty smaller archipelagos. Islands mountainous, with some peaks reaching 3,800 meters above sea level in western islands and as high as 5,000 meters in Irian Jaya. Highest point Puncak Jaya (5,039 meters), in Irian Jaya. Region tectonically unstable with some 400 volcanoes, of which 100 are active.
Climate: Tropical, hot, humid; more moderate climate in highlands. Little variation in temperature because of almost uniformly warm waters that are part of the archipelago. In much of western Indonesia dry season June to September, rainy season December to March.

ECONOMY

Chart of Indonesian economy

 

Salient Features: Economy transformed from virtually no industry in 1965 to production of steel, aluminum, and cement by late 1970s. Indonesia exporter of oil; responsible for about 6 percent of total Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries production in 1991. Emphasis in early 1990s on less government interference in private business and greater technology inputs. Agriculture predominates and benefits from infusion of modern technology by government. Indonesia major aid recipient. Major trade partners Japan and United States; trade with ASEAN fellow members increasing.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP): Rp166.3 trillion in 1989. GDP annual average growth rate 6 percent in 1985-91.
Agriculture: Declining share (20.6 percent) of GDP but employed majority of workers (55 percent of total labor force) in 1989. Only 10 percent of total land cultivated, another 20 percent potentially cultivable. Farming by smallholders and on large plantations (estates); cropland watered by flooding, and slash-and- burn farming used. Rice dominates production but cassava, corn, sweet potatoes, vegetables, and fruits important; estate crops-- sugar, coffee, peanuts, soybeans, rubber, oil palm, and coconuts-- also important. Green Revolution technological advances and increased irrigation improved production in 1970s and 1980s. Poverty in rural areas of Java, Bali, and Madura partially ameliorated with government-sponsored Transmigration Program that moved people to more plentiful farmland in Outer Islands. Animal husbandry, fishing, and forestry smaller but valuable parts of agricultural sector.
Industry: Increasing share (37 percent in 1989) of GDP, but employed only about 9 percent of the work force in 1989. Basic industries: oil and natural gas processing, cigarette production, forestry products, food processing, metal manufactures, textiles, automotive and transportation manufactures, and various light industries. Nearly 50 percent of production in Java, 32 percent in Sumatra.

Relation with foreign countries

Minerals: Crude petroleum and natural gas predominant. About 70 percent (about 500 million barrels valued at US$6 billion in 1989) of petroleum exported. World's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (20.6 million tons valued at US$3.7 billion in 1990). Also significant reserves of coal, tin, nickel, copper, gold, and bauxite.
Services: Some 29 percent of GDP projected for 1991, employing about 35 percent of work force in 1989. Government service one of fastest growing sources of employment and with most educated personnel. Mix of modern government-operated utilities, stable private services, and numerous self-employed operators in informal, personal services sector. Interisland maritime transportation crucial; supported by large fleet of traditional and modern boats and ships.
Foreign Trade: Principal export trade with Japan, the United States, Republic of Korea (South Korea), and Taiwan. Most important commodities crude petroleum and petroleum products; natural gas (mostly to Japan), natural rubber, clothing, and plywood also important. About 25 percent of GDP exported in 1980s. Major imports (37 percent of total) from Japan and the United States, primarily manufactured products. Growth in trade with other ASEAN members in 1980s and early 1990s.
Balance of Payments: Positive trade balance throughout 1980s despite oil market collapse. 1990 exports US$26.8 billion versus US$20.7 billion imports. Foreign debt increasing quickly (US$1.1 billion in 1989; US$2.4 billion one year later) in late 1980s and early 1990s.
Foreign Aid: Traditionally important part of central government budget. From 1967 to 1991, most coordinated through Inter-Governmental Group on Indonesia founded and chaired by the Netherlands; since 1992 without Netherlands through Consultative Group on Indonesia. Major CGI aid donors (80 percent) Japan, World Bank, and Asian Development Bank.
Exchange Rate: Rupiah (Rp). US$1 = Rp2,060 (January 1993), Rp1,998 (January 1992), Rp1,907 (January 1991).
Fiscal Year: April 1-March 31.

Financial Reform

The president's technocratic advisers on financial policy, who had unsuccessfully resisted growing government regulations during the 1970s, spearheaded the return to market-led development in the 1980s. The financial sector is often the most heavily regulated sector in developing countries; by controlling the activities of relatively few financial institutions, governments can determine the direction and cost of investment in all sectors of the economy. From the 1950s to the early 1980s, the Indonesian government frequently resorted to controls on bank lending and special credit programs at subsidized interest rates to promote favored groups. Toward the end of this period, the large state banks that administered government programs were often criticized as corrupt and inefficient. Sweeping reforms began in 1983 to transform Indonesia's government-controlled financial sector into a competitive source of credit at market-determined interest rates, with a much greater role for private banks and a growing stock exchange. By the early 1990s, critics were more likely to complain that deregulation had gone too far, introducing excessive risk taking among highly competitive private banks.

Balance of economy

Like many developing countries, the Indonesian financial sector historically was dominated by commercial banks rather than by bond and equity markets, which require a mature system of accounting and financial information. Several established Dutch banks were nationalized during the 1950s, including de Javasche Bank, or Bank of Java, which became the central bank, Bank Indonesia, in 1953. Under Sukarno's Guided Economy, the five state banks were merged into a single conglomerate, and private banking virtually ceased. One of the first acts of the New Order was to revive the legal foundation for commercial banking, restoring separate state banks and permitting the reestablishment of private commercial banks and a limited number of foreign banks.
During the 1970s, state banks benefited from supportive government policies, such as the requirement that the growing state enterprise sector bank solely with state banks. State banks were viewed as agents of development rather than profitable enterprises, and most state bank lending was in fulfillment of governmentmandated and subsidized programs designed to promote various economic activities, including state enterprises and small-scale pribumi businesses. State bank lending was subsidized through Bank Indonesia, which extended "liquidity credits" at very low interest rates to finance various programs. By 1983 such liquidity credits represented over 50 percent of total state bank credit. Total state bank lending in turn represented about 75 percent of all commercial bank lending. The nonstate banks--which by 1983 numbered seventy domestic banks and eleven foreign or joint-venture banks--had been curtailed during the 1970s by licensing restrictions, even though they offered competitive interest rates on deposits and service superior to that offered by the large bureaucratic state banks. Bank Indonesia also imposed credit quotas on all banks to reduce inflationary pressures generated by the oil boom.
The first major economic reform of the 1980s permitted a greater degree of competition between state and private banks. In June 1983, credit quotas were lifted and state banks were permitted to offer market-determined interest rates on deposits. Many of the subsidized lending programs were phased out, although certain priority lending continued to receive subsidized refinancing from Bank Indonesia. Also, important restrictions remained, including the requirement that state enterprises bank at state banks and limitations on the number of private banks. By 1988 state banks still accounted for almost 70 percent of total bank credit, and liquidity credit still accounted for about 33 percent of total state bank credit.
In October 1988, further financial deregulation essentially eliminated the remaining restrictions on bank competition. Limitations on licenses for private and foreign joint-venture banks were lifted. By 1990 there were ninety-one private banks--an increase of twenty-eight in a single year--and twelve new foreign joint-venture banks, bringing the total foreign and joint-venture banks to twenty-three. State enterprises were permitted to hold up to 50 percent of their total deposits in private banks. Later, in January 1990, many of the remaining subsidized credit programs were eliminated.
The extensive bank deregulations promoted a rapid growth in rupiah-denominated bank deposits, reaching 35 percent per year when controlled for inflation in the two years following the October 1988 reforms. This rapid growth led to concerns that competition had become excessive; concern was heightened by the near failure of the nation's second largest private bank, Bank Duta. The bank announced in October 1990 that it had lost more than US$400 million, twice the amount of its shareholders' capital, in foreign exchange dealings. The bank was saved by an infusion of capital from its shareholders, which included several charitable foundations chaired by Suharto himself. The spectacular crash of Bank Summa in November 1992 was not protected by Bank Indonesia. Its owner, a highly respected wealthy businessman, was forced to liquidate other assets to cover depositors' losses.

Currency of Indonesia

Unrestricted transactions in foreign exchange by Indonesian residents had been a unique feature of the financial sector since the early 1970s. While many developing countries attempt to outlaw such so-called capital flight, the New Order continued to permit Indonesian residents to invest in foreign financial assets and to acquire the foreign exchange necessary for investments through Bank Indonesia without limit. Commercial banks in Indonesia, including state banks, were also permitted since the late 1960s to offer foreign currency--usually United States dollar--deposits, giving rise to the so-called Jakarta dollar market. By 1990 20 percent of total bank deposits were denominated in foreign currency. This freedom to invest in foreign exchange served the financial institutions well. During the 1970s, when banks' domestic credit activities were heavily restricted, most banks found it profitable to hold assets abroad, often well in excess of their foreign exchange deposits. When demand for domestic credit was high, banks resorted to international borrowing to finance expanding domestic loans. To control the domestic supply of credit by plugging the offshore leak, in March 1990, Bank Indonesia issued a new regulation that limited the net foreign position of a bank (the difference between foreign assets and liabilities) to 25 percent of the bank's capital.
Prior to bank reforms in October 1988, some private banks were essentially the financial arm of large business conglomerates and consequently did not make loans to businesses outside those connected with the bank's owners. The 1988 bank reforms limited loans to businesses owned by bank shareholders. When many of the government-subsidized credit programs targeted to small businesses were eliminated in January 1990, the government required banks to lend a 20 percent share of their loan portfolio to small businesses, defined as those businesses with assets, excluding land, worth less than Rp600 million (about US$300,000). This aspect of financial reform ran counter to the overall effort to improve bank efficiency, since the rule applied to all banks regardless of their expertise in small-scale lending. However, the policy reflected the government's persistent concern that the public might perceive the benefits of economic growth as limited to the wealthy few.
One of the most striking outcomes of financial reform was the revival of the Jakarta stock market in the late 1980s. Established in 1977, the stock market had become lifeless during the early 1980s because of extensive regulation of stock issues and price movements. In conjunction with substantial bank reforms, many restrictions on the Jakarta Stock Exchange were lifted in the mid1980s , broadening the range of firms that could issue equity and permitting stock prices to reflect market supply and demand. To tap the growing international interest in Asian investments, foreign ownership was permitted for up to 49 percent of an Indonesian firm's issued capital. The market's response to these reforms was dramatic. The number of firms listed on the exchange rose from 24 in 1988 to 125 in January 1991, and the market capitalization--the total market value of issued stocks--reached more than Rp12 billion. Although this amount of market capitalization was less than 15 percent of the volume of bank credit to private firms, the stock market promised to become an increasingly important source of finance.

FOREIGN AID, TRADE, AND PAYMENTS

Aid and Trade Policies

Indonesia's exports were vital to its economic development, as exports earned the foreign exchange that permitted Indonesia to purchase raw materials and machinery necessary for industrial production and growth. During the 1980s, about 25 percent of domestic production, or GDP, was exported. Although petroleum was the most important export, other exports included agricultural products such as rubber and coffee and a growing share of manufactured exports. In the late 1980s, the government classified about 70 percent of imports as raw materials or auxiliary goods for industry, about 25 percent of imports as capital goods, primarily transportation equipment, and only around 5 percent of imports as consumer goods.
Export earnings also contributed to Indonesia's ability to borrow from world financial markets and international development agencies. On average, about US$3 billion per year was borrowed during the 1980s. These borrowings primarily financed governmentsponsored development projects. However, increasing interest payment obligations in the late 1980s helped bring more restraint to government borrowing.
Indonesian exports were traditionally based on the country's rich natural resources and agricultural productivity, making the economy vulnerable to the vicissitudes of changing world prices for these types of products. For example, the Dutch colonial economy suffered when world sugar prices collapsed during the Great Depression, and fifty years later, the New Order endured the dramatic oil market collapse in the mid-1980s. Manufactured exports offered the prospect of more stable export markets during the 1980s, but even these products were threatened by increased trade protection among industrial countries. To avoid heavy reliance on a few trade partners, the government pursued several measures to diversify export markets, especially to other developing nations such as China and Indonesia's fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Tourism statistic of Indonesia

Substantial trade reforms during the 1980s contributed to the surge in manufactured exports from Indonesia. The most important manufactured export was plywood, whose domestic production was facilitated by the ban on log exports in the early 1980s. In 1990 plywood accounted for over 10 percent of total merchandise exports. Although not yet significant individually, a wide range of manufactured products, including electrical machinery, paper products, cement, tires, and chemical products, helped bring overall manufactured exports to 35 percent of merchandise exports, or a total of US$9 billion in 1990, up from less than US$2 billion in 1984.
The growth in non-oil exports helped Indonesia maintain a positive trade balance throughout the 1980s in spite of the oil market collapse. However, increases in imports, service costs such as foreign shipping, and interest payments on outstanding foreign debt all contributed to a worsening current account deficit in the late 1980s. The deficit more than doubled from US$1.1 billion in 1989 to US$2.4 billion in 1990. The 1991 current account deficit was predicted to reach as high as US$6 billion.
The government had successfully avoided a debt crisis in the early 1980s when many developing countries, including the neighboring Philippines, were forced to temporarily halt debt repayments. In a comparative study of Indonesia and other debtor nations, economists Wing Thye Woo and Anwar Nasution argued that Indonesia's success was due to two main factors: heavy reliance on long-term concessional loans and sustained high exports because of a willingness to devalue the exchange rate even when oil export revenues were buoyant. When dollar interest rates soared in the early 1980s, Indonesia's average interest rate on long-term debt was 16 percent compared with over 20 percent paid by Brazil and Mexico.
By 1990 Indonesia's total outstanding foreign debt had reached US$54 billion, more than double the amount in 1983. Over 80 percent of this debt was either lent directly to the government or guaranteed by the government. Measures to reduce foreign borrowing together with the rise in export earnings brought the debt service ratio from 35 percent in 1989 to 30 percent in 1990. Indonesia continued to rely heavily on borrowing from official creditors rather than private sources such as commercial banks or bond issues. In 1990 US$33 billion, or 75 percent, of government debt was from official creditors; of this amount, US$18.5 was at concessional terms. In 1990 US$5 billion in new loan commitments from official creditors were secured at an average interest rate of 5.7 percent, with an average maturity of twenty-three years, whereas US$1 billion in new commitments from private creditors entailed a 7.4 percent interest rate and an average of fifteen years maturity.
The mounting government concern over foreign debt led to the establishment of a Foreign Debt Coordinating Committee in 1991, which included ten cabinet ministers chaired by the coordinating minister for economics, finance, industry, and development supervision. The committee was given broad powers to document and coordinate all foreign borrowing that was related to either the central government budget or the state enterprise sector. Although in theory this debt excluded private-sector foreign borrowing, such borrowing could be included if the investment project received any state financing or supply contracts from state enterprises. The power of this committee was made apparent in its first initiative in 1991, which postponed until 1995 four major energy and petrochemical projects representing a total investment of US$10 billion.
Multilateral aid to Indonesia was long an area of international interest, particularly with the Netherlands, the former colonial manager of Indonesia's economy. Starting in 1967, the bulk of Indonesia's multilateral aid was coordinated by an international group of foreign governments and international financial organizations, the Inter-Governmental Group on Indonesia. The IGGI was established by the government of the Netherlands and continued to meet annually under Dutch leadership, although Dutch aid accounted for less than 2 percent of the US$4.75 billion total lending arranged through the IGGI for FY 1991.
The Netherlands, together with Denmark and Canada, suspended aid to Indonesia following the Indonesian army shootings of at least fifty demonstrators in Dili, Timor Timur Province, in November 1991. The shootings led to international protests against government policy in the former colony of Portuguese Timor, which had been forcefully incorporated into the Indonesian nation in 1976 without international recognition. Indonesian minister of foreign affairs Ali Alatas announced in March 1992 that the Indonesian government would decline all future aid from the Netherlands as part of a blanket refusal to link foreign assistance to human rights issues, and requested that the IGGI be disbanded and replaced by the Consultative Group on Indonesia formed by the World Bank.
Indonesia's major aid donors--Japan, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank contributed about 80 percent of IGGI-coordinated assistance, and were willing to continue assistance outside the IGGI framework. Other donors, however, such as the European Community, had charter clauses refusing financial assistance to governments that violated human rights. Although European Community did not sever its aid ties to Indonesia following the 1991 events in East Timor, human rights concerns were expected to affect subsequent negotiations.