The Rold of Copper Industry in the Economic Development of Chile

• Main Authors: Tsai, Bang-Wen, 蔡邦文
• Other Authors: Kung, Kwo-Wei
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/56121981338756833644

碩士 === 淡江大學 === 拉丁美洲研究所 === 92 === Under the structure of global capitalism, the asymmetry of development, technology, capital and labor between developing and industrial countries have lead them to a periphery — center relation in either production, export and financial aspects. This dependency greatly constraints the economic growth of the former countries. The situation of dependency also exists in the exploitation industry in the Third World countries, where transnational corporations have the technology and the capital needed to enter in that industry, and the host countries can’t compete with. Thus, these foreign enterprises invested in the exploitation of natural resources that represents interests to them in many developing countries, and then established monopolies in particular industries. These activities, that transnational corporations excavate resources in host countries and export them directly to the market or their home country, have the same nature as a colonial economy does. Thanks to the geological environment, Chile is abundant in mineral resources such as gold, silver, nitrate and copper, etc., and its economy have long been relied on the exports of those minerals. In the second half of the nineteenth century, nitrate was Chile’s important export product which accounted for more than eighty percent of total exports; later in the twentieth century, copper had became the primary export. Since then, the copper industry of Chile was in the hands of multinational corporations, foreign capital and technology that they brought in were essential to develop. It was until 1971 Salvador Allende came to power, the monopoly of the copper industry in Chile was broken down. Copper has been stated as Chile’s most important natural resource in a majority of researches related to its economy, and the copper industry also has been an important industry when it comes to production value, exportation and tax contribution, etc.. For the economic status that the copper industry had in Chile, the intention of this dissertation is trying to find out the co-relations that exist between the copper industry in Chile and its economy development. Through the discussion of primary exporting economies, we firstly examine the negative characteristics that these countries could have in international trade, and also the extent that those factors might detriment the economic growth. Further, the analysis of the copper industry in Chile and its role in the economic development is divided by government periods. The turning point of the development of chilean copper industry was in the 1970s, while that President Allende nationalized the Gran Minería in 1971, and later, after General Augusto Pinochet assumed the presidency, the government took an open and non-discriminatory aptitude toward the multinational corporations that have interests in investing in copper industry. Therefore, the observation of this study is centered on the military government period, while Chile was experiencing neoliberalism economic reform at the same time, and on the democratic governments period that the percentage of copper exports accounted in total export had been shrunk in the 1990s.