Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
where tariffs were so high (over 100 per cent on many items of regular
importation), lowering of the tariff barrier is a tremendous incentive, which may
lead to location decisions that are wrong in the long term. It is worth mentioning
a couple of the aided industries, as they demonstrate the artificiality of the whole
operation. In Tierra del Fuego, because of its special aid status, which included
freedom to import components as a free port, and a sudden need to bring in
made-up items when the country moved from black and white to colour
television, a national industry making colour televisions was established (Morris
1996b). This was no real industry but an assembly operation, using kits whose
components were already built into subsystems of the whole, and only required
the last assembly operation to be ready. No industrial skills have been built up in
Tierra del Fuego, where the industry is still located, and the market is in distant
Buenos Aires. Another example is in Chubut province, where a substantial
textile industry has been built up at the small town of Trelew. Again, the
advantage for the industry was the host of credits and tax remissions available
from central government, together with special aid from the province itself.
Again too, the industry is in reality poorly located in a remote part of the
country, its vertical linkages being with Buenos Aires (materials come from the
capital and return to it after weaving operations at Trelew), and there being few
linkages between all the small factories in Trelew itself.
There have been other sectoral policies, including state ownership of
industries, with a strong regional effect. Massive development of hydroelectric
power has had some effect on the economies of distant provinces in the far north
and south. National ownership of the petroleum and gas industries may have had
a location effect, although private development of this industry is likely to have
been more active. National ownership of transportation—railways and airlines—
probably meant some reduction of the penalty for distant provinces, as market
prices were not charged.
Summary
Overall, Argentina's development has been weak, and less than expected in the
early decades of this century. Strong government intervention has apparently not
helped, although there is a certain inevitability about state intervention given the
early history of the country. A large set of policies was used in the 1960-90
period towards helping the interior regions, although without a strong effect,
since the range of income differences between the highest and lowest provinces,
per capita, is about the same as in 1970. There was, up to the advent of President
Menem and new policies, a sense of failure about both national and spatial or
regional development in the country.
There are three arguments about success and failure that may be summarized.
One is the lack of openness of the Argentine economy, which has not helped it to
succeed as a country that needed constant reference to export markets, because
