Brazil’s Grievous Manufacturing Collapse (The Emerging Markets Investor)

Brazil’s “Dutch Disease” has been worsened by the concurrent strong growth of the farming, mining and oil sectors — all productive and capital intensive activities with a high degree of export competitiveness. The rapid growth of these sectors, and the discovery of the giant offshore pre-salt oil fields, has strengthened the current account and caused a structural appreciation of the Brazilian real. The loss of competitiveness of Brazil’s manufacturing sector has been more than compensated by the increased production and dollar revenues of the growth sectors. Unfortunately, these successful sectors generate scarce jobs and lack the significant multiplier effects of the manufacturing sector.
Over this period, China’s manufacturing value added went from two times Brazil’s to 31.3x, a relative increase of 15.7x. India went from 44% of Brazil’s level to 2.9x. Every single country in the chart has gained relative to Brazil. This includes commodity producers (highlighted in red) which also may have suffered Dutch Disease. Most striking are Indonesia and Malaysia which went from 15% of Brazil to 150%, and 8% to 56%, respectively, a testament to the Asian commitment to currency stability and manufacturing exports.

Source: Brazil’s Grievous Manufacturing Collapse (The Emerging Markets Investor)