O MERCOSUL, A INDÚSTRIA DE BENS INTERMEDIÁRIOS DO NORDESTE E AS PERSPECTIVAS

Abstract

Historically, the Norteastern economy developed itself, oriented to the Southeast market, supplying that region with intermmediate goods and/or raw materials. Nowadays this productive specialization, supported in a national strategy of imports substitution, has been challenged with the opening of Brazilian economy and the constitution of Mercosul. With these processes, the Northeastern industry has started suffering strong competition from suppliers of intermmediate goods from the rest of the world and, mainly, from Mercosul. This article searches the origins of the increasing importance in Northeast of intermmediate goods industry, and also evaluates some impacts of Mercosul on this industry and its competitiviness. It estimates indexes of revealed comparative advantages and examinates market perspectives in order to show that Mercosul, despite its pessimistic initial avaliation, is an importante way to expand both trade and complementarity of Northeastern industry and also to enhance scales and competitiveness.