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Abstract
The high foreign debt and the chronic current account deficit
force Brazil to produce significant trade surplus. Agriculture has been
giving a great contribution as its export value has been growing at higher
rates than economy other products; therefore there is a welcome agricultural
trade surplus. However, to depend on agriculture as main source
of exchange value puts the country in a vulnerable situation: the world
demand for agricultural products is relatively decreasing, the agricultural
trade prices and amounts variability are bigger than of industrialized
products, and the agricultural terms of trade have been declining in the
last 30 years. Such facts enable the conclusion that the justification of the
substitution of imports model is pertinent again and that the increase in
export amounts of agricultural products not necessarily imply the Brazilians
welfare improvement.